Independent Group wins Supreme Court Bar election as PM congratulates

The Independent Group has won the Supreme Court Bar Association's election, and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif congratulated the group on the result, according to a report by UrduPoint.

In the same dispatch, the prime minister said the leadership of Azam Nazeer Tarar and Ahsan Bhoon was commendable. UrduPoint named the association's newly elected president as Syed Amjad.

The report carried no vote count, no margin of victory and no results for the association's other offices, and those details were not available from any other outlet carrying the story.

The Supreme Court Bar Association is the apex body of lawyers qualified to appear before the Supreme Court. Its annual elections are watched beyond the legal profession because its office-bearers regularly state the bar's position on constitutional questions and on matters concerning the judiciary. The association runs the poll itself; the federal government has no formal role in the process or in the result.

The Independent Group is one of the panels that has contested the association's elections, and the prime minister's message identified Tarar and Bhoon as the figures whose leadership he was praising. With his election as president, Syed Amjad becomes the association's principal elected office-bearer for the coming term.

Bar association elections are followed closely in legal and political circles, and results at the Supreme Court Bar are reported nationally rather than only in the trade press.

No statement from a rival panel, from the outgoing office-bearers or from the incoming president himself appeared in the reports available, and neither outlet that covered the story carried the association's detailed result sheet. The number of votes polled, the turnout and the composition of the association's other elected offices therefore remain unconfirmed.