Since last Friday the country has been gripped with an energy which has not been seen in the public sphere for a long time now. The way General Musharraf first suspended Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, then sent the reference against him to the Supreme Judicial Council and appointed an acting chief justice, all this while Justice Chaudhry kept waiting for the president, has unleashed an unprecedented resistance. The lawyers' community, which has led this resistance, has shown remarkable courage and resilience. They have shown that the judiciary and the constitution have for too long been manipulated by the executive, especially the military, and that it is high time the executive should give the judiciary its due place.

The first question is why has the government initiated the reference against Justice Iftikhar? To judge the motivation of the government, there are two observable indicators: one, the nature of charges made against him in the reference; two, the process through which the reference has been filed. Both indicators give strong indications that the motivation of the government to initiate the reference is open to question. To begin with, the government seems to be still in the process of preparing the written reference while this should have been the first step if the reference was to be filed in a constitutionally appropriate manner.

However, given that Naeem Bokhari's open letter is being used as one of the basis of the reference, the question is were the accusations in it strong enough to initiate immediate termination of the chief justice. Does the executive have the right to remove the sitting chief justice from office because the latter was asking for state protocol when the president himself does this all the time? Which one of the sitting ministers who have been defending the government on electronic media is does not demand official protocol?

Apart from the nature of the allegations, doubts about the motivation of the government are clear from the way the entire process has been handled. It is towards this that the lawyers have directed their opposition. If General Musharraf's action was motivated by genuine concerns about the conduct of the chief justice then as senior lawyers and judges have repeatedly explained, the proper way would have been to file a reference against the chief justice while allowing him to remain in office till such time that a decision is taken.

The rush to suspend the chief justice, to appoint an acting chief justice, and then to follow up with actions such as lifting the chief justice's cars and putting him under house arrest all indicate an ulterior motive rather than genuine concerns about his personal conduct. Moreover, the whole episode seems to be a signal to all judges that if they start to show a bit of independence they can also be removed as easily.

Clearly, the president seems to have been taken by surprise this time, especially by the response of the general public. The resistance put up by the lawyers and supported by the media has shown that the military's continued exploitation of civilian institutions has reached a point where the public is very frustrated and is now even gaining the courage to openly retaliate. The delay in producing a proper written reference against Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and the unconstitutional handling of the process therefore supports the concerns that the reasons for initiating the reference are other than what are being stated by the government. These reasons seem more to do with the chief justice's decision over the privatisation of the steel mills and most importantly his recent push to take up the cases of missing people allegedly handed over to the United States or held by Pakistan's own intelligence agencies.

The open reaction by the lawyer community is actually a culmination of a general frustration with the sitting government. This resistance has been most inspiring and encouraging as it has shown that the civil society is not dead in Pakistan. Also, it shows that there are credible individuals within the lawyer community, which have been putting their case in the media very articulately. These lawyers and retired judges have to be congratulated for their courage and conviction to stand up for what they believe is a just cause and one that deserves to be held in the highest regard. Also, they have to be credited for making the government ministers look like dwarfs. One only wonders at these ministers who are willing to stoop so low that they continue to make inaccurate statements to defend the government. Also, some have shown their crude conduct by the kind of rude language they have used on TV and radio shows.

Finally, the incident also shows that the failure of the political parties to mobilise the public on the streets is also because of lack of courage shown by the leaders of these parties. In the current situation, what has helped the lawyers unite is that the issue is very focused and clear and the fact that the movement has built up such a strong momentum in itself helps sustain the movement further. Whatever the outcome of the judicial proceeding against the chief justice, this resistance is for sure a good first step towards curtailing the military's ever expanding role within Pakistan.



The author is undertaking post-doctoral research at OxfordUniversity. Email: mb294@hotmail.com