Eight Pakistan Bar Council members reject proposed changes to council rules

Eight members of the Pakistan Bar Council (PBC) have rejected proposed amendments seeking to make the council’s proceedings and deliberations confidential, saying the regulatory body of the legal fraternity should instead operate with transparency.

In a letter to the PBC secretary, the eight members — Abid Shahid Zuberi, Muhammad Maqsood Buttar, M Shafqat Mehmood-Chauhan, Munir Ahmed Kakar, Abdul Sattar Khan, Salman Akram Raja, Salahuddin Ahmed and Qazi Muhammad Arshad — said all proceedings of the council should be open, since it was an elected body representing the entire legal fraternity.

“We are not a private club or some secretive government agency,” the two-page letter said. A copy of the letter was also sent to Attorney General for Pakistan Mansoor Usman Awan, who is the ex-official chairman of the PBC.

The letter emphasised that, as a general rule, all proceedings, deliberations and business of the council should be open and transparent and available for scrutiny by the more than 100,000 lawyers it represented, as well as the public at large.

The PBC intends to amend Rule 97 of the Pakistan Legal Practitioners and Bar Councils Rules, 1976, by introducing a new Rule 97-A to provide for the confidentiality and classification of proceedings of the council and its committees.

Under the proposed rule, all acts, proceedings, deliberations and business of the PBC, its committees, tribunals, sub-committees and other bodies constituted under its authority would be treated as confidential and classified. Such information could not be disclosed, communicated, circulated, published or otherwise made available to any person without the express authorisation of the council or the relevant committee.

The proposed amendment also states that no PBC officer, employee, consultant, adviser or any other person with access to the council’s confidential proceedings or records by virtue of their office or functions may disclose, reproduce, transmit, circulate or publish such information, except as otherwise provided under the rules.

The confidentiality under this rule will extend to electronic records, emails, electronic communications, audio or video recordings, digital files, photographs, copies and reproductions of any document or proceedings of the council or its committees, the amendment suggested.

The members recalled that it was also stated in the Sept 4 letter to the members, which was circulated through WhatsApp, that the rules committee had decided that, since the meeting was not being convened shortly, the amendments should be circulated among the members of the PBC under Rule 91 of the Pakistan Legal Practitioners & Bar Councils Rules, 1976, for their views or approval.

The eight members, in their letter, had also drawn the council’s attention to the fact that they had taken strong exception, at the outset, to the manner in which the 1976 rules were sought to be amended, i.e. by way of circular resolution.

Firstly, Rule 91 of the 1976 Rules provides that, “in case of emergency”, the PBC may pass a resolution by way of circulation.

However, neither the secretary nor the rules committee has explained the “emergency” that requires the overnight amendment of the statutory rules, the letter emphasised, adding that circular resolutions were not a substitute for a proper meeting of the PBC, where the merits and demerits of a proposal could be fully discussed and members would have an opportunity to debate and convince each other.

“Unfortunately, there appears to be a trend now in the PBC to pass hugely important and consequential amendments to statutory rules through circular resolutions and bypass the requirement of convening a meeting, even when, clearly, there is no ‘emergency’,” the letter regretted.

Besides, under Rule 91, the rules committee has the power, in case of an emergency, to pass a circular resolution instead of convening a meeting of the rules committee itself. However, it has no power to do so in respect of meetings of the council.

The rules committee is not the convening authority for the full PBC house, nor can it determine when a full PBC meeting is likely to be held, or decide whether any “emergency” exists, the letter highlighted.

The contents of the proposed amendment, however, are even more shocking, the letter stated, as it provides that all acts, proceedings, deliberations and business of the PBC (and any of its committees or other bodies) shall be confidential and classified and shall not be disclosed, circulated or communicated by any PBC member or employee without express permission.

The eight members urged all other members to remember that the council was an elected body and its members were statutory representatives of the entire legal fraternity, rather than a “private club or some secretive government agency”.

“Therefore, all its proceedings, deliberations and business, as a matter of general rule, must be open, transparent and available for the scrutiny of the more than one lakh lawyers we represent, as well as the public at large.”

There may possibly be some limited exceptions to this general rule (for example, in sensitive disciplinary cases involving the privacy of individuals), but the general rule for the PBC must be transparency, the letter emphasised.

“Neither we, personally, nor the PBC, collectively, have anything to hide. Unfortunately, this proposed amendment seeks secrecy as the general rule and disclosure and transparency as the exception,” the letter stated.

The proposed amendment violates the freedom of speech guaranteed under Article 19 of the Constitution and also violates the right to information guaranteed under Article 19-A of the Constitution, the letter highlighted, rejecting the proposed amendments.