News
Friday, November 23, 2007
No early release for judges who ‘defied’ Musharraf* Analyst hails deposed SC judges as ‘real heroes’
* Aitzaz Ahsan’s wife says govt endeavouring to stop her husband from filing nomination papersISLAMABAD: Judges and lawyers whose interpretation of the law posed the most serious challenge to President General Pervez Musharraf’s authority remain either under house arrest or in prison.
Thousands of other opponents detained were freed this week, as Musharraf responded to intense pressure from the international community and opposition parties to reverse the authoritarian steps he took on November 3.
Days away from the end of his first term as president and a constitutional obligation to give up his army post, Musharraf’s main objective in imposing emergency rule was to get rid of the judges before they got rid of him.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and a handful of other judges stayed inside the Supreme Court the night the emergency was imposed. They were dismissed and escorted home by security officials.
Judges are heroes: “These seven judges are our real heroes,” said Nasim Zehra, a political analyst. “We can’t let them be lost.”
Zehra lamented the repeated readiness of both military and civilian leaders to put self-interest above the law, in a country ruled by generals for more than half the time since it was formed.
“The issue of the dismissed judges has to be resolved because these are the men who after 60 years stood up,” she said.
Chaudhry remains under house arrest with his family at their official residence in Islamabad, as do other judges. Rana Bhagwandas, the sacked deputy chief justice, has tested the limits of his custody by visiting his dentist.
On Wednesday, he spoke to Dawn Television. He said the appointment of judges in their place was illegal “and any judgement rendered by them will have no constitutional protection or validity”.
Such a sham: Aitzaz Ahsan is in Adiala Jail in Rawalpindi. Ahsan, a former cabinet minister from Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, was one of the most powerful orators on the National Assembly floor.
Ahsan’s wife Bushra said the authorities were putting every obstacle in his way to stop him from filing nomination papers by November 26 for a parliamentary election in January, and there was nowhere she could petition for her husband. “He’s neither a militant, nor a terrorist. He’s a man of the pen. He can only command his arguments,” she told Reuters.
“This is such a sham. What is the next parliament?” she added. “There is no judiciary, there is no rule of law.”
Athar Minallah, a lawyer who helped relay Chaudhry’s words of defiance to the media and the legal fraternity after Chaudhry was put under house arrest on November 3, was finally picked up on Wednesday and deposited in Adiala, according to Human Rights Watch (HRW).
There are another five Supreme Court judges confined in their residences. At least another five judges are under house arrest in Lahore, among them being Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday.
Asia HRW Director Brad Adams, in a statement issued on Thursday from New York, took issue with President George W Bush for not being tougher with Musharraf, a valued US ally against Al Qaeda and Islamist militancy.
“Rather than making ridiculous statements that signal no consequences for Musharraf’s dictatorial moves, Washington should suspend further dealings with him and the army until he releases these judges, restores them to office, and reverses the state of emergency,” Adams said.
Musharraf has vowed to step down as army chief and will be sworn in for a second five-year term within a few days after the new judges on the bench dismissed the last challenge on Thursday to his re-election last month. “They are not judges, they are dummies,” Wajeehuddin Ahmed, a former Sindh chief justice who ran against Musharraf, said of the bench that gave the general the all-clear for his re-election. reuters
Courtesy DailyTimes.com.pk