Bahrain Mirror: Commenting on the decision to dissolve Al-Wefaq, office of lawyer Jassim Serhan said in a statement issued on Thursday (July 21, 2016): "Prior to the pronouncement of the sentence, we submitted a request to the court to refer the case for pleading, enable us to defend our client and take legal measures. Our address to the court included giving us enough time to prepare the plea, finish the proxy measures and allow us to enter Al-Wefaq headquarters to find the necessary and needed information and evidence for our plea in order to refute the charges."

"We were surprised about what was published in the local news regarding the ruling, while article 28 of the attorneyship law for 1980 stipulates that the court has to delay the session granting enough time for assigning another lawyer in case the opponent's lawyer withdraws. The society hadn't assigned any lawyer to represent it. However, our request to refer the case for pleading and allow us to defend Al-Wefaq has been already submitted to the court before the pronouncement of sentence session. A lawyer from our office had also attended the session that was held on July 17, 2016," the statement further read.

"We were assigned by Al-Wefaq to represent it before the supreme civilian court after Al-Wefaq's defence team withdrew from the case protesting over not being granted the suitable chance to perform its legal duty," said the office, adding that "an attorney from our office attended the court's session on July 17, 2016; however, we were surprised that the court issued its sentence and ignored our crucial demands without even tackling them in the court's minutes and ruling."

Arabic Version