Mustafa Qadri

My first piece from Pakistan for NewMatilda.com has just been posted. It’s on the lawyers movement seeking the reinstatement of the judiciary sacked by President Musharraf last year and a general improvement in the rule of law. Here’s a longer, unedited version:

It was a hot, humid day in Karachi last Wednesday, perhaps an appropriate setting for a movement still burning with a desire for change. Iftikhar Chaudhry, the deposed Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court, spoke to a packed gathering at the Sindh High Court in a hall bearing his name. Chaudhry called on Pakistan’s lawyers to continue their demands for an independent judiciary. “Without the rule of law, there will be no end to injustice in this country.” He later added that the lack of transparency had led to flagging foreign investment in the country, alluding to a recent Pakistan State Bank report on an alarming increase in national debt and inflation.

In May last year Musharraf sacked several federal and provincial judges in a move widely condemned as an attempt to neuter the threat of an independent judiciary. He later reconstituted the Supreme Court, Pakistan’s highest court, with a bench of handpicked judges. (You can read my reports on these events for NewMatilda.com here and here.)

“The main problem in this country is [that] powerful people are above the law,” said Abid Feroze, a young lawyer involved in the movement. “Throughout our history the judges have supported the dictators. Now, for once, someone is challenging this impunity.”

“How can we have justice when our judges are not independent?” added Sarwar Khan, one of the most senior barristers at the gathering. Last year Khan, along with hundreds of others, was imprisoned for three weeks during a protest in Karachi against the removal of judges.

“We were kept in a hall, seventy of us. There were no beds, no sheets, nothing. So we had to sleep on the ground. There was one bathroom for everybody… they wanted us to accept that we were disturbing the peace. We refused… eventually they let us go [because] they couldn’t charge us.”

Lawyers and journalists jostled for positions as senior advocates and deposed judges from each of Pakistan’s four major provinces spoke at last week’s event. The assembled lawyers chanted “go Musharraf, go” while consecutive speakers railed at the inability of Pakistan’s five month old civilian government to reinstall the judges sacked by President Musharraf last year.

The movement has given the government until 14 August to reinstate all sacked judges. “If they are not returned, we will [recommence] our civil disobedience,” said Muneer Malik, another senior lawyer.

Government authorities did not allow any of Pakistan’s numerous satellite channels to broadcast the event live. According to a media source who refused to be named, the decision suggests that a civilian government that campaigned on a platform openly hostile to Musharraf at the last elections does not want to upset the General who in 1999 took control of the country in a bloodless coup.

Pakistan’s fragile civilian administration remains plagued by the decision of senior government figures, most notably Pakistan People’s Party Chairman Asif Zardari, to delay the reinstatement of judges sacked by President Musharraf. Officially, the PPP argues that constitutional issues need to be addressed before any reinstatement takes place.

Privately, however, there is widespread speculation that there are other motivations. The feeling is that PPP boss Zardari fears a reinstated and reinvigorated Supreme Court will make an adverse finding on a number of corruption cases involving the billionaire husband of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Some, such as Chief Justice Chaudhry and other leaders of the lawyers’ movement, suspect the PPP-led government has reached a compromise with Musharraf aimed at frustrating moves to have the judges returned. The other major coalition partner, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League, supports their immediate reinstatement.

In the immediate future, however, such demands appear unlikely to be met. “We are here for the long haul,” Sarwar Khan told me. “Already it has been 16 months [without the reinstatement of judges]. But if you look at it, Pakistan has been waiting for justice for a lot longer.”