New York Times
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
ISLAMABAD, March 24 — For the past seven years, the Pakistani judiciary has swallowed hard to accommodate the military rule of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, repeatedly bending in matters of law and constitution.
But in the two weeks since the president fired the country’s top judge, whose rulings had begun to challenge the Musharraf government, outraged Pakistani lawyers and others have poured into the streets, setting off an unprecedented outburst of frustration and signaling the most serious challenge that General Musharraf has faced.
American officials who worry about General Musharraf’s longevity focus on whether he is fighting hard enough against Al Qaeda and Taliban militants on the Afghan border. But the latest unrest suggests that his vulnerability may lie more in rising anger over accountability and democracy at home.
“His invincibility has sort of been challenged,” said Talat Masood, a retired general who has been increasingly critical of the Musharraf government. “In a silent way, the people have spoken and said, ‘This cannot continue. This one-man show cannot continue.’ ”
Although the president has come under fire from both right and left, there is little reason to suggest that his rule is in immediate danger. The street demonstrations are still limited. But even officials who say these troubles will soon blow over privately acknowledge that his authority has been notably weakened and that he may have to compromise with some of his political opponents to survive.
General Musharraf’s critics contend that under the Constitution, he has no power to dismiss the chief justice unless he has been found guilty of breaking the law. They believe he ousted the chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, out of fear that the judge would raise questions about what appears to be his ambition to be re-elected president while remaining army chief. General Musharraf’s term as president expires in October.
The legal dispute is principally over the constitutionality of the president holding the office of army chief. In 2003, Parliament gave the general the leeway to hold both offices, but that expires when his term does, in October. The dual role has become a symbol of what Pakistanis describe as the encroachment of the military into their everyday lives.
General Musharraf has not said whether he would remain in uniform, only that he would call elections this year. Regarding the future of the chief justice, he has said that he will abide by the verdict of a high-level judicial panel. He has not made clear why the judge was arrested.
According to leaks published in the Pakistani news media, the chief justice faces charges of impropriety, including pressing for favors for his son. Mr. Chaudhry has denied the allegations.
On Friday, speaking at a National Day ceremony at the main sports stadium here, General Musharraf urged the nation to keep politics out of the inquiry. “Don’t make it a political issue,” he said, according to The Associated Press. “It is a legal issue, and it will be resolved only through legal and constitutional means.”
The United States maintains that it expects General Musharraf, whom it counts as a vital ally in the campaign against terrorism, to abide by his nation’s Constitution. The Commonwealth heads of state, including Britain, have urged him to resolve the uniform issue by the end of his term, calling the current circumstances “incompatible with the basic principles of democracy.”
This week, American officials commended General Musharraf for his efforts in flushing out militants sympathetic to Al Qaeda from the tribal areas near the border with Afghanistan.
The turmoil over the chief justice’s firing began on March 9, when General Musharraf summoned Mr. Chaudhry to an army office in the garrison town of Rawalpindi and ordered him to resign or face unspecified charges. The tableau was broadcast on television — the general in uniform, the judge in his courtroom attire. It was an image that Pakistanis repeatedly recall as a symbol of the “arrogance” of the military.
“The message I got was this is a frontal assault on the remnants of the independence of the judiciary,” said Munir Malik, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association. “Henceforth, no judge will be safe.”
The judge refused to resign, and things only got worse. Television images showed Mr. Chaudhry being manhandled and stuffed into a police car. Then came protests by lawyers across the country, and images of baton-wielding police beating them with abandon.
During one demonstration last week, riot police officers ravaged the studios of Geo, a private television station that had broadcast news of the protests. General Musharraf swiftly apologized for the conduct of the police and promised they would be punished.
Still, the images stuck. The general’s critics, including onetime members of his government, began to describe the squabble over the chief justice as an example of how army rule had daunted key government institutions. At least seven judges, along with a deputy attorney general, resigned in protest.
“Decent people are not coming forward to say a word in favor of the government,” said Abdul Sattar, who served as foreign minister during the first three years of General Musharraf’s presidency. He said the public outcry after Mr. Chaudhry’s suspension stemmed from accumulated grievances, on everything from corruption in government to the entrenchment of the army in civilian affairs to the “general legitimacy of the government.”
He took pains to say that General Musharraf’s government deserved credit for many things — an improved economy, for one — but added that those achievements had been overshadowed by the gradual erosion of independent government institutions. He called the firing of Mr. Chaudhry “the last straw.”
Shamshad Ahmad, who served in General Musharraf’s government as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United Nations, warned of “despair and disillusionment” among Pakistanis, in a stinging opinion piece in the conservative newspaper Nation on Saturday. “Either the president is totally cut off from the world of reality or he has deliberately chosen to close his eyes,” he wrote.
The president’s supporters, most of whom are unwilling to speak openly, predict that the uproar over the judge will soon subside. “The issue will fade out,” said one Western diplomat. “However this plays out, Musharraf comes out weaker than he has been, but not as weak as for his government to collapse.”
Whether the agitation against General Musharraf’s actions will be sustained is unclear. Nor does anyone know how the Supreme Judicial Council will rule on Mr. Chaudhry’s case, which is due to begin hearings on April 3. But neither his restoration nor his permanent ouster will ultimately help the president, Najam Sethi, the editor of the Friday Times, wrote last week. If the panel endorses the president’s move, it will be seen as “a puppet of the military,” whereas if it restores the chief justice, Mr. Chaudhry would likely “become a rigid obstacle in General Musharraf’s path.”
“In the long run, it is a no-win situation unless the general is prepared to share power and abide by the Constitution,” he wrote.
Mr. Chaudhry, for his part, supported General Musharraf’s coup in 1999. He was not among the judges who were purged from the judiciary in 2000 when they refused to accept a provisional constitution drafted by his government. He did not challenge a constitutional amendment that came three years later and allowed General Musharraf to simultaneously retain the posts of army chief and president. “The judiciary has always been the B-team of the army,” conceded Mr. Malik, the president of the bar association. “It has collaborated with all martial regimes.”
That began to change as Mr. Chaudhry began to scrutinize the government in uncomfortable ways in recent months, including by raising questions about “forced disappearances,” in which Pakistanis had been held by intelligence agencies without due process. Then he refused the general’s invitation to resign.
Ayesha Siddiqa, a strategic analyst who is writing a book on the Pakistani military, said the defiance served as an inevitable trigger of public opinion against the general. “Chaudhry is very symbolic of the overall frustration,” she said. “There was discontent mounting against him.”
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