Dogar “greeted” by lawyers

FAISALABAD, March 9: Lawyers led by District Bar Association president Nasir Ali Gorraya staged a demonstration at Kamalpur Interchange when Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar, who took oath under the Nov 3 Provisional Constitution Order, en route Multan via Jhang arrived here from Islamabad on Saturday.

Sources said that the chief justice was on his on way to Jhang when some protesting lawyers gathered at Kamalpur Interchange after coming to know the top judge’s travelling plan.

The protesters were carrying banners and black flags. They resorted to sloganeering in favour of deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry the moment Justice Dogar’s vehicle left the motorway to enter the city precincts.

The lawyers vowed to continue their struggle till the reinstatement of all superior courts judges deposed under the Nov 3 PCO and for the establishment of rule of law, supremacy of the Constitution and independence of the judiciary.

Sudden and unannounced protest by the lawyers left protocol and security officials stunned and they immediately changed the CJP’s route towards Chiniot instead of Jhang to avert any further ‘eventuality’.

Lawyers’ drive reaching destination

LAHORE, March 9: Supreme Court’s deposed judge justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday said on Sunday the drive for the independence of judiciary, which began after the murder of judicial officer (SC) Hammad Raza, was nearing its end. SC additional registrar Hammad Raza was slain on May 14 in Islamabad.

Justice Ramday said this while talking to the participants of a car rally at his residence. The rally began from the residence of Supreme Court Bar Association president Aitzaz Ahsan’s residence in Zaman Park.

Hundreds of lawyers, activists, political workers and students attended the rally by the Concerned Citizens of Pakistan (CCP) to mark a ‘black flag week’ being observed to show solidarity with deposed judges.

Justice Ramday said the movement lawyers had launched on March 9, 2007, had added a golden chapter to the history books.

He said the people of Pakistan had stood up and made it clear to the rest of the world that they were a nation, alive and conscientious.

He said the lawyers' movement was not for the restoration of an individual but for the survival of national institutions. Mr Ramday was the head of a bench that was proceeding with a case regarding the candidature of President Pervez Musharraf in the presidential election at the time of imposition of emergency on Nov 3. Mr Ramday spoke high of Chief of Army Staff Pervez Kiyani, former SCBA presidents Munir A Malik and Justice (retd) Tariq Mahmood and Ali Ahmed Kurd and Mr Ahsan.

He paid tributes to Justice (retd) Mahmood, saying that he had sacrificed his job as the Balochistan High Court judge in 2002 when all other judges, including himself, were in hibernation at that time.

He said he had no words to express his feelings for lawyers, civil society and students for keeping the movement alive in face of hardships.

The protesters chanted slogans in favour of deposed judges and against President Mushrraf. They waved black flags and wore black armbands.

Some participants put stickers on cars carrying slogans for the reinstatement of judges. The rally arrived at Justice Ramday's residence via Canal Road and Jail Road.

As the rally reached the GOR-I, no law enforcement official stopped them from entering the area. The Lahore High Court has declared the GOR-I a 'no-go zone' for the common man.

Mr Ahsan also met Justice Ramday and had a chat with him for an hour. He congratulated the justice for his “likely restoration”.

Earlier, Bushra Aitzaz said everyone wanted the restoration of the judiciary sooner than later because it was in the best interest of the country.

She said when (deposed) Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was restored, activists would sing the national anthem outside the Supreme Court.

Hamid Zaman, Justice Nasira Iqbal (retired), Mansoor Ali Shah, Saima Khwaja, Muhammad Azhar Siddique and Beena Qureshi were present.

Restoration pledge must be met: warns aitzaz

LAHORE, March 9: Supreme Court Bar Association president Aitzaz Ahsan has expressed the hope that PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif will fulfil their promise to reinstate the deposed judges within 30 days after the formation of the new government.

Talking to reporters after meeting the Supreme Court’s deposed judge Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday at his residence here on Sunday, Mr Ahsan said people would start counting days for restoration of the judiciary and lawyers would continue their movement.

Earlier, addressing a press conference after hoisting a black flag at the office of the Punjab Bar Council to mark the beginning of the ‘black flag week,’ he said parliament would not be able to complete its five-year term if it set aside the reinstatement of the deposed judges. He said if the parliament did not restore the judges the lawyers would be forced to tell it that it needed a strong and independent judiciary to complete its tenure. He said a parliament built on the debris of the judiciary was destined to be weak and subservient.

He said the lawyers’ movement was aimed at strengthening national institutions, including parliament and the judiciary.

He said that only an independent and strong judiciary could guard parliament’s interests and serve as a bulwark against conspiracies.

He said that a judiciary aligned with President Pervez Musharraf could not hand down an independent decision.

He said the proponents of the theory that the illegal steps taken on Nov 3 last year could not be undone without a two-thirds majority in parliament were according legality to the actions taken by Gen (retd) Musharraf. That would mean that tomorrow another armyman would step in, suspend the Constitution, detain 100 judges instead of 60, arrest parliamentarians and tell the nation to go to parliament for a solution, he said.

Mr Ahsan accused the president of committing an offence by suspending and amending the Constitution and deposing and arresting 60 judges.

He said that on March 9 last year, the deposed chief justice was detained for four days but after the imposition of emergency he had been in illegal confinement for four months. “Not only the chief justice but his children also are incarcerated like prisoners. What wrong have Ifra, Palwasha and Bilal done?” he asked.

He said the chief justice’s home had been turned into a private jail.

In the judges’ colony in Islamabad, Justice Sardar Raza Khan, Justice Shakirullah Jan and Justice Nasirul Mulk were detained and in Lahore, Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday, Justice Falak Sher, Justice Tassadaq Hussain Jillani and Justice Ijaz Chaudhry were confined in their homes, he said.

He criticised the interior minister for stating the deposed chief justice had not been detained and that his official residence was to be vacated. Mr Ahsan said even a retired judge was allowed to keep the official residence for six months without any charges and was required to pay Rs 65,000 as rent in case he wanted to stay further.

“In this case we are talking about the chief justice of Pakistan. He is not deposed, he is the chief justice of Pakistan.”

He accused Gen (retd) Musharraf of keeping the chief justice confined in order to force him to resign. “Chief Justice Iftikhar will not resign,” Mr Ahsan said.

Aftermath of a proxy war!

Nauman Qaiser (Courtesy Dawn Letters)

VERY conscientious and concerned Pakistani would be alarmed at the recent increase in suicide bombings aimed at high government officials and personnel of law-enforcement agencies, wherein innocent civilians become unwilling victim.

This state of indiscriminate and wholesale brutality on the part of terrorists has made an ordinary citizen suspicious about the government’s will and ability to provide him security of person and property. In this regard, the government’s policies, specially those related to the so-called war on terror, have continuously been grilled by the intelligentsia.

Tuesday’s bomb blasts – which the authorities have hurriedly called a suicide attack — at the Pakistan Navy War College, Lahore; the successful suicide attack on the surgeon-general of the Pakistan Army; the carnage seen at the funeral of a deputy superintendent of police, who himself was a victim of one such attack; the gruesome butchery of the policemen deployed to ‘guard’ the lawyers’ rally in Lahore; and several other gory incidents of the similar nature testify to the fact that the so-called war on terror being fought by Pakistan has become increasingly unpopular, especially in the Frontier region, which ‘hosts’ this war, and from where most of these suicide bombers purportedly hail.

The government may be hinting at the involvement of a foreign hand with particular reference to India, but all evidence, empirical as well as nominal, support the theory that the terrorism being faced by Pakistan is home-grown. Besides rampant poverty and illiteracy, it’s the desperation after a dear one is brutally killed by a ‘brother’ soldier that forces these suicide bombers to indiscriminately blow up the fellow citizens.

Had President Musharraf declined to join this war, Pakistan would not have been facing such macabre consequences which threaten to tear its very fabric apart. In any case, the threat to “bomb Pakistan to the Stone Age”, which was only meant to bring Pakistan into compliance, would definitely not have materialised, given, inter alia, the nuclear deterrence we possess.

However, what the Americans would have found difficult to achieve, the unabated suicidal bombings and the resulting lawlessness, which are direct the consequence of the war we are fighting for the Americans, would definitely be able to accomplish. That is to say that if necessary measures are not taken forthwith to curtail these terrorist acts, Pakistan would definitely be going towards bombing itself to the ‘Stone Age’. The government, therefore, should reconsider its role in the ‘war on terror’, in which Pakistan’s services have not even been acknowledged as day in and day out our ‘allies’ in the West repeat the mantra of ‘to do more’. The only solution to the current crisis is pulling the Army out of the estranged Frontier regions, without which the so-far unsuccessful political dialogue is not possible.

I do not buy the idea of trying both the stick and the carrot at the same time; to try the carrots one must put the stick in the cupboard.

In this ‘fight’ between the terrorists and the government, an ordinary citizen of Pakistan is the victim. Like the political uncertainty surrounding the country for the last one or so year, this continuing sense of insecurity along with the lack of availability of basic amenities of life brought the patience of the masses to the brim, as they gave their verdict in the general election against the Musharraf regime.

Now the ball is in the court of the new government, which should better take cognizance of the aspiration of the ordinary citizens or else be prepared to be consigned to the dustbin of history.

US urged to support Pakistani lawyers

WASHINGTON, March 2: America’s largest legal fraternity — the National Lawyers Guild — has invited several high-ranking lawyers from Pakistan to tour the United States.

The lawyers will visit major cities and explain their effort to restore the judges dismissed by President Pervez Musharraf.

American lawyers associated with the guild will also address these meetings and urge the US administration to change its policy of “blindly trusting” President Musharraf as an ally in the war on terror despite his administration’s efforts to deprive the judiciary of its independence and to impose restrictions on the press.

Attorney Ryan Hancock, the vice-president of NLG’s mid-Atlantic region, said the centrepiece of the tour will be NLG’s mid-Atlantic regional conference in Philadelphia this week at the Drexel University College of Law.

The closing session of the conference is titled “Rule of Law and Pakistan’s Lawyers’ Movement: Then and Now” and will feature three leaders of the movement, Hamid Khan, Muneer Malik and Sahibzada Anwar Hamid.

An NLG delegation of four lawyers and four law students visited Pakistan for 11 days in January and recently issued a report that called for a “major change in US policy, away from support for military dictatorship and towards support of genuine democracy and rule of law in Pakistan.”

An independent judiciary “is fundamental to a free society,” the report says, and the NLG delegation “has concluded that any outcome short of restoring the judges serving on November 2, 2007 will have long-term negative impacts on the rule of law in Pakistan by subjecting the judiciary — and therefore the entire government and the country’s 160 million people — to the whim of the executive.”

In NLG’s trip to Pakistan, Mr Hancock said, members of the delegation travelled to all of the major cities where they conducted interviews with more than 50 jurists, lawyers, political party representatives, elected officials, civil servants, journalists and members of civil society.

Lawmakers asked to reinstate judges or meet same fate

LAHORE, March 2: Supreme Court Bar Association president Aitzaz Ahsan warned parliamentarians on Sunday that if they did not reinstate the deposed judges, they themselves could meet the same fate one day.

He was addressing people who gathered outside his Zaman Park residence after his four-month detention ended after the last restraining order issued by the Punjab government had lapsed.

“We don’t buy the idea that someone could suspend parliament, arrest the parliamentarians, amend the Constitution and say now go to parliament for a solution,” Mr Ahsan said.

He said that proponents of the theory that the illegal steps taken on Nov 3 could not be reversed without parliament were, in fact, justifying the illegality.

“They are trying to mislead parliament for which we want to ensure a full tenure,” Mr Ahsan added.

“Don’t blame us if the parliament failed to restore the judges and the parliamentarians got arrested tomorrow. I am sure nobody would raise a voice.”

He said his message was: “Give the people their judges back.”

He said all the deposed judges could resume work if the interior minister issued an order.

He said that the deposed chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, was still confined to his residence along with his school-going children. “Mohtarma Shaheed Benazir Bhutto, while standing in front of the barbed residence of the chief justice on Dec 10, had stated that Iftikhar Chaudhry was still the Chief Justice of Pakistan,” he recalled and said that the late prime minister wanted to launch a long march but was detained.

He said the lawyers laid stress on the long march because they wanted restoration of the pre-November 3 emergency to strengthen parliament.

“If anyone is to be weakened by the long march, it would be Gen Musharraf and his aides who need a compliant judiciary,” the SCBA chief said.

He said the lawyers wanted parliament to restore the judiciary and the Constitution and to give complete freedom of expression to the media.

He said if parliament failed to fulfil the demand, the lawyers would issue a fresh date for the long march.

He said if the lawyers needed to execute their plan for the march, not only the deposed but retired judges also would accompany them to Islamabad. The lawyers would converge from all directions and gather in Islamabad to free the deposed chief justice and all other judges.

Mr Ahsan said the lawyers would observe a black week from March 9, the date on which the chief justice was first detained last year, hoist black flags and hold conventions. He asked students to come forward and participate in the campaign for the restoration of judges.

He said he would go to Naudero on Monday to visit Ms Bhutto’s grave. Answering a question, Mr Ahsan said he had supported Makhdoom Amin Fahim’s name for the prime minister’s post but would go along with the party’s decision in this regard.

Later, he marched to The Mall, along with lawyers, activists, students and workers of the PPP and PTI.

Aitazaz released from house arrest!

The Chief antagonist amongst the lawyer’s movement that spearheaded opposition to President Pervez Musharraf was released on Sunday after four months of detention and house arrest, a senior government official said.

Aitzaz Ahsan, a former Member of Parliament and cabinet minister, was detained hours after Musharraf imposed emergency rule on the country on Nov. 3 last year. His staunch support of former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, who was purged when Musharraf imposed emergency rule, along with dozens of other judges seen seen as hostile to Musharraf’s re-election in October while still army chief.

“His detention is over. He’s now free man. There’s no need to issue any release order,” Khusro Pervaiz Khan, home secretary of provincial Punjab government, told Reuters. Reports state that barricades outside Ahsan’s house in Lahore, have been removed and police withdrawn.

Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, was held at Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi for nearly three weeks before being put under house arrest in Lahore.He vowed on Sunday to continue a campaign by lawyers to press for the restoration of the sacked judges.“We’ll continue our fight. We believe there’s no independent judiciary until all detained judges are released and restored,” he said. ­