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ISLAMABAD: Lawyers associated with the capital’s bar associations and councils have gone on strike today, Monday, to protest against the president’s move to transfer three judges from different high courts to the Islamabad High Court (IHC). 

President Asif Ali Zardari on Saturday approved the transfers of Justice Sardar Muhammad Sarfraz Dogar from the Lahore High Court, the Sindh High Court’s Justice Khadim Hussain Soomro and Balochistan High Court’s Justice Muhammad Asif to the IHC, invoking anger from the capital city’s district and high court bar associations. 

Zardari went ahead with the transfers despite opposition from five of 10 IHC judges. In a letter addressed to the chief justices of the Supreme Court and high courts on Friday, the judges said the decision was unfair to the existing senior judges of the IHC.

They also cited speculation and news reports that the government wanted to appoint Justice Dogar as the IHC’s chief justice, saying that it would be a “fraud on the constitution.”

“This decision is unfair to the judges serving in the IHC as it clearly affects their seniority,” Asad Manzoor Butt, president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association, told Arab News. 

Butt supported the Islamabad High Court Bar Association’s call for notification of the judges’ transfer to be canceled. 

“We will travel to Islamabad to consult with the Bar leadership and extend our support to them,” he said. 

Pakistan’s constitution empowers the president to transfer a judge from one high court to another after the concerned judge consents to the decision. The president can approve the transfer after consulting the chief justice of Pakistan and the chief justice of both high courts.

The Islamabad Bar Council (IBC) said on Sunday that the capital city’s lawyer bodies will pursue all legal and constitutional avenues to challenge the move and safeguard the “judicial independence of Islamabad.”

It said an All-Pakistan Lawyers’ Convention will be held under the IBC on Monday to formulate a future strategy to challenge the transfers. 

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s and Iran’s chambers of commerce have signed an agreement aimed at increasing exports between the two countries to $10 billion, state-run media reported on Monday, as the two sides eye increasing trade to move past strained ties. 

The development takes place after Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagheri, chief of general staff of Iran’s armed forces, visited Pakistan last month to hold talks with the country’s civil and military leadership on border management, economic cooperation and regional issues. 

Pakistan and Iran have often been at odds over instability along their shared, porous border and routinely trade blame for not rooting out militancy. Tensions surged in January last year when Pakistan and Iran exchanged airstrikes, with both claiming to target alleged militant hideouts in each other’s territory.

“A memorandum of understanding has been signed between the Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce and Industry and the Mashhad Chamber of Commerce and Industries in Lahore,” state broadcaster Radio Pakistan reported. 

“The purpose of the MoU is to take bilateral volume of exports to ten billion dollars between the two countries,” the statement said. 

It said the governor of Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province, Sardar Saleem Haider Khan and the governor general of Iran’s Razavi Khorasan province, Gholam Hossein Mozaffari, both attended the signing ceremony.

Khan said his Iranian counterpart expressed “great interest” in Pakistani products, stressing that both countries should focus on expanding trade relations.

“He said the Iranian Governor has assured to consider reducing tourist and business visa fees and improving facilities for easier travel and trade,” the report said. 

Later, both governors inaugurated a one-day shopping festival organized by the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry at the Expo Center Lahore.

Iran’s late president Ebrahim Raisi toured Pakistan in April 2024 as both countries sought to mend ties after unprecedented tit-for-tat military strikes. 

During Raisi’s three-day visit, the two governments signed MoUs and agreements covering different fields including trade, science and technology, agriculture, health, culture and judicial matters. 

Raisi had said that the volume of trade between the two countries “is not acceptable at all” and that they should enhance bilateral trade to $10 billion.