Barrister Aitizaz Ahsan is our Pakistan Bar Association President. He has since, March 2007, been sincerely campaigning for the restoration of the rule of law and independence of judiciary and restoration of 60 deposed justices.
Leadership of Pakistan Peoples Party and Muslim League ???N were out of country. They came back to Pakistan through National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO). Asif Ali Zardari widower of Benazir Bhutto was facing corruption and other criminal cases while Nawaz Sharief had been exiled by General Mhsharraf. Chief Justice of Pakistan had started delivering justice independently. His Banker Prime Minister Shoukat Aziz has been selling assets of Pakistan to his favourits buyers at through away prices and he was doing all sorts of financial corruption with the support of General Musharraf. Now he has virtually run away from the country. Security Agencies of General Musharraf had been making people of Pakistan untraceable and most of them were handed over to United States on payment of money without due process of law of extradition.
Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftkhar Mohammad Choudhry had started entertaining petitions of untraceable persons families. General Musharraf and Prime Minister Shoukat Aziz when got him sacked as Chief Justice unlawfully Aitizaz Ahsan fought his case. Though the Chief Justice was restored by the Supreme Court decision but few months after the Chief Justice and 60 other justice were dismissed because they had refused to accept Musharraf dictates against the Constitution of Pakistan.
Mr Zardari, against whom cases were terminated because of (NRO), is now leader of the majority party in the government. He does not want independent judges. Zardari like any other dictator needs tamed judiciary. Bush administration also does not want independent judiciary in Pakistan because independent Judges will be asking for production of the untraceable citizens, clandestinely handed over by Musharraf.
If the independent Judges are restored Musharraf is very likely to be tried for various crimes including mutiny breaking of the Constitution of Pakistan.
Present US Government is strongly backing General Musharraf. The NRO was enacted by General Musharraf under the dictates of Bush administration. Now Zardari intends to pay back his favour to General Musharraf by not restoring the independent judges who could be problem for Musharraf and American administration.
Zardari does not like Aitizaz Ahsan though he is member of Pakistan Peoples Party and he was Interior Minister in Benazir???s last Government. Our present leadership and specifically the role of Barrister Aitizaz for independence of judiciary will be remembered for ever in Pakistan.
M. Saleem Sheikh, Advocate Supreme Court of Pakistan
Islamabad - Rawalpindi
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Justice For Our Justice
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Then the backsliding started. Prodded by America to retain Musharraf, the government complied and did nothing to restore the judiciary. Promises were made, but one deadline after another slipped by.
After two months, we lawyers returned to the streets, calling for a long march toward Parliament. Starting on June 9, marchers from all parts of the country, including Khurram and I, began to converge in Islamabad. Gazing over the sea of humanity in the early-morning hours of Saturday, June 14, I felt that virtually the whole of Pakistan—a nation distinguished more by its violent differences than its commonalities—had come together on a single issue: justice for the chief justice.
This was not a stereotypical mob baying for any brutish form of recourse. It was, instead, a gathering simply demanding fairness under the law. Though few of the non-lawyers in the crowd could have recited the concepts by name, the assembled citizens were taking a stand for basic principles like habeas corpus, the ideas of the Magna Carta (which proclaims the supremacy of law) and the spirit of the U.S. Bill of Rights—all of which have been squashed by Musharraf. Above all, however, they were there to support the kind of judges, like Chaudhry, who treat these concepts not as mere words but as a solemn compact between the state and its citizens.
As the first rays of the Saturday sun streaked over Parliament, I delivered the concluding speech, and this remarkable crowd, the biggest in Pakistan's recent history, dispersed peacefully for the trip home. Not a shot was fired or a pane of glass broken. Yet more than 200,000 Pakistanis had managed to make their point: they wanted their judges back.
Yet as I walked off stage I found myself wondering if the governing coalition, the general or his backers in America had been listening. Unfortunately, the signs aren't promising. A few days later at the award ceremony for Khurram, the U.S. ambassador blithely ignored his brave call for justice. Khurram himself is now in the protective custody of his terrified parents. They fear that Pakistan's notorious intelligence agencies, known for their propensity for making inconvenient people disappear, could move against him.
This very tendency was one more thing that had landed Pakistan's chief justice in trouble—he had repeatedly demanded due process and habeas corpus for all prisoners, even those picked up by the military.
For Khurram's sake, and that of every other Pakistani, we need our chief justice back now.
Ahsan is president of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan and the leader of the Lawyers’ Movement.
© 2008
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