Pakistan's top judge is suspended (Merged)

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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Re: Pakistan’s top judge is suspended (Merged)

Now the dictator sends his uniformed goonda’s after the lawyers as well

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\03\15\story_15-3-2007_pg1_6
Late night crackdown on lawyers, politicians

LAHORE: Police and intelligence agencies arrested several opposition politicians and lawyers in raids carried out at their residences in Lahore around midnight on Wednesday, following protests against the suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.

Opposition parties and lawyers have announced a joint demonstration in Lahore tomorrow (Friday).

Sources told Daily Times the raids started during the night and were at their peak at midnight. The crackdown was launched on the orders of the Punjab government.

The sources said the authorities gave the approval for the raids following a high-level meeting and the federal government’s nod to go ahead. They claimed the crackdown had been launched to “reduce the intensity of the ongoing protests against the CJP’s suspension”.

Workers from the Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz and Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and members of the Lahore Bar Association and Lahore High Court Bar Association told Daily Times that “a few dozen people” had been arrested and detained in various police stations of the city. A representative of lawyers and a local leader of the PPP confirmed that raids were being carried out and that people had been arrested, but the exact number of arrests could not be confirmed.

The sources said that the families of the arrested people had started telling others to escape from their houses to avoid being arrested.

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Pakistan president faces open revolt as lawyers take to streets again

Pakistan’s president, General Pervez Musharraf, is facing one of the most brazen challenges to his seven-year rule, as a battle of wills with the country’s leading judge has escalated into a powerful protest movement that has caught the government by surprise.
For the past week Gen Musharraf has been trying to force the chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, a feisty judge with a history of confronting the government, to resign. But in a rare show of defiance by a civilian official, Justice Chaudhry has refused to go, triggering the first big confrontation with the president from the Pakistani establishment.

Enraged lawyers, who have taken to the streets burning effigies of Gen Musharraf and engaging in bloody clashes with the police, kept up their campaign of agitation yesterday. Gen Musharraf’s opponents are promising to bring thousands of protesters on to the streets again tomorrow, when Justice Chaudhry’s case is due to go back to court.
The government accuses Mr Chaudhry of misconduct and misuse of authority, but the allegations have been overshadowed by public anger at the government’s aggressive tactics. The defiant stand has turned the 58-year-old judge into an unlikely popular hero.
**“He took a lot of strong decisions to free victims of this government. He is very good,” said Farooq, a barber in Islamabad, as he watched a televised debate yesterday. **
**The stand is unprecedented. Since Gen Musharraf - a commando by training - seized power in 1999, civilians in the bureaucracy and judiciary have meekly obeyed his orders. Analysts say he has badly miscalculated this time. “It was an arrogant move that has eroded his credibility. Everything that has happened since reeks of panic,” said Abbas Nasir, editor of Dawn newspaper. **
Justice Chaudhry irritated the government with a succession of bold decisions. In August he overturned the privatisation of the country’s largest steel mills after corruption allegations surfaced, a decision that stung the prime minister, Shaukat Aziz. More recently he has taken a strong stance on the “disappeared” - hundreds of people who have been illegally abducted by shadowy security forces, held incommunicado without trial, and in some cases tortured.
Gen Musharraf tried to remove his critic last Friday when he summoned Justice Chaudhry to army headquarters in Rawalpindi and asked him to resign. At the same time a new chief justice was being sworn into office at the supreme court in Islamabad. Gen Musharraf plans to secure another five-year term through a controversial electoral gambit later this year, and may need an ally in the judiciary if the move is challenged in court.
But the chief justice refused to resign, triggering a panicked response that further damaged the general’s democratic credentials. On Monday two television channels were briefly taken off air for showing images of bloodied lawyers being beaten by police. Reporters Without Borders yesterday called on Gen Musharraf to end the “authoritarian intervention”.
When Justice Chaudhry tried to walk from his home to the supreme court on Tuesday police bundled him into a car. But at the court the judge received a victor’s welcome. Hundreds of lawyers pressed around, cheering raucously and showering him with rose petals. Some jumped on to the roof of the government vehicle and smashed its windows. Inside the court the chief justice found that his chambers had been sealed and his staff removed. He said he feared the Inter-Services Intelligence agency had taken his files to concoct a disciplinary case against him.
The unrest comes at a time when Gen Musharraf is under pressure on several fronts. He is under fire from the US for failing to tame Taliban and al-Qaida militants sheltering in the lawless border areas. But at home he is accused of being a US puppet, while his record in assuring security has been undermined by a spate of suicide bombings in big cities.
For the first time a phrase is being quietly spoken in the country’s political drawing rooms: the beginning of the end. But others urge caution. “This is the first time civil society has led a rebellion, but it may not lead to anything,” said Mr Nasir. “Civil society against a half-million strong army is no match.”
Nevertheless the situation worries western diplomats, who consider Gen Musharraf a key ally and admit there is no “plan B” if he were deposed or assassinated. A US embassy spokeswoman in Islamabad said the situation was an “internal legal matter” and referred all queries to the Pakistan government.
The political opposition senses an opportunity to wound the enemy. Qazi Hussain Ahmed, leader of the influential Jamaat Islami party, has vowed to mobilise thousands of supporters on to the streets tomorrow, when Justice Chaudhry’s case is due to be heard again.
The situation is more complicated for Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s party, which is eager to weaken Gen Musharraf but wants to avoid close association with the radical religious parties.
**Meanwhile the chief justice is preparing to fight his corner. It will not be easy - the four lawyers he has hired to mount a defence have not been given a list of charges nor allowed to visit their client. **
**“We tried to see him at his home yesterday but were denied entry,” said one lawyer, Munir Malik. “All that - even though the court assured us he was a free man.” **
Backstory Few countries are as strategically critical yet fragile as Pakistan. Taliban and al-Qaida fighters use the lawless tribal belt as a base from which to mount attacks on Afghanistan and the west. An insurgency is gripping western Baluchistan province. One third of its 165 million people are living in poverty. It has a long, largely unpatrolled, border with Iran. Osama bin Laden is thought to be hiding there. But for many western diplomats the greatest fear is that Pakistan’s nuclear bomb, which was first tested in 1998, could fall into the hands of Islamist fundamentalists, which is why they say that support for General Pervez Musharraf, a staunch western ally, is vital.

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Re: Pakistan’s top judge is suspended (Merged)

We have had some bad govt’s, but this govt has indeed sunk to a new low
http://dawn.com/2007/03/14/ed.htm#2

Spectacle of shame

YESTERDAY’S brutal manhandling by the Islamabad police of the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, whose clothes were torn as he was forced into a car by the police for taking him to the Supreme Court, casts the government in a terrible light. Never before has a chief justice been treated in such a callous and disrespectful manner, with little regard for his position, exposing the full extent of the government’s muddling of the whole affair since Friday. Restrictions placed on the Chief Justice who, together with his family, was virtually kept under house arrest shattered all illusions about any democratic credentials that anyone expected this government to have. Since the CJ’s illegal, virtual confinement, lawyers, politicians and senior media persons who wanted to meet him were turned away by the security personnel. The sheer deception indulged in by the federal information and law ministers, who kept denying that any restrictions had been placed on the freedom of movement or of speech of the Chief Justice, is a matter of further shame. On Tuesday night an official handout attributing the issuance of an ‘advice’ by the Supreme Judicial Council warning the media not to print or broadcast news or comments on the proceedings against the Chief Justice was released to the media. Earlier, the government forced two independent news channels off the air after images of police action against a lawyers’ rally in Lahore were telecast. Transmissions were resumed only after the footage had been ‘edited’ or censored.

How could a government which claims to have been elected by the people conduct itself in such a callous and thoughtless manner? That in the preceding four years in office it has never allowed any meaningful debate to take place in parliament over national issues is bad enough; the abrupt adjournment of the Punjab Assembly sessions on Monday and Tuesday after the speaker disallowed a debate on the developing crisis involving the legal community further exposed this government’s lack of democratic credentials. Little can be expected of a government whose security apparatus can manhandle even the Chief Justice of Pakistan against all norms of civilised conduct.

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Re: Pakistan's top judge is suspended (Merged)

Good God what a mess...
leaving us breathless & speechless...

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Re: Pakistan’s top judge is suspended (Merged)

Basically everything in this post was so stupid, it’s simply depressing. But this caught my eye. In a country like Pakistan, privatization will actually decrease corruption. It is nationalization that will increase corruption. I’m not going to bother to explain to you why, because you won;t have the brain power to understand it. But to say privatization is an attempt at corruption really is the height of dumbness, if you knew even basic economics you’d know why. Let me guess you write for The Economist Magazine, dont you? :clown:

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Re: Pakistan’s top judge is suspended (Merged)

Actually I recently got a better understanding of the Pakistani governments point of view, and most of it is like what I said (I actually did not know they used Article 180 until I read it yesterday, it was clear by reading the Constitution that Article 180 allows the President of Pakistan to suspend the Chief Justice). But anyway, the government’s reasoning looks totally sensible..here seems to be what they’re saying.

Article 180
*180. Acting Chief Justice. At any time when- (a) the office of Chief Justice of Pakistan is vacant; or (b) the Chief Justice of Pakistan is absent or is unable to perform the functions of his office due to any other cause, the President shall appoint [163] [the most senior of the other Judges of the Supreme Court] to act as Chief Justice of Pakistan. *

Article 209
*3) If at any time the Council is inquiring into the capacity or conduct of a Judge who is a member of the Council, or a member of the Council is absent or is unable to act due to illness or any other cause, then *
*(a) if such member is a Judge of the Supreme Court, the Judge of the Supreme Court who is next in seniority below the Judges referred to in paragraph (b) of clause (2), and *
*(b) if such member is the Chief Justice of a High Court; the Chief Justice of another High Court who is next in seniority amongst the Chief Justices of the remaining High Courts, shall act as a member of the Council in his place. *

In plain English, the Chief Justice cannot carry out his normal functions of office since he cannot preside over his own case before the SJCouncil. Therefore someone else needs to be appointed as Chief Justice temporarily while he is suspended pending the outcome. This is all very clear from the Constitution. Section (3) of Article 209 clearly shows that if a member of the SJ Council including the Chief Justice is unable to fulfill his role as Chief Justice, then Article 180 comes into play, and this clearly directs the president to appoint a new acting Chief Justice until the inquiry is over.

It is also clear that Musharraf can call an inquiry into the Chief Justice if he is only of the suspicion the Chief Justice is corrupt, also mentioned in Article 209. The Council will decide his fate and Musharraf will execute their decision.

Article 209
*(5) If, on information [231A] [from any source, the Council or] the President is of the opinion that a Judge of the Supreme Court or of a High Court, *
*(a) may be incapable of properly performing the duties of his office by reason of physical or mental incapacity; or *
*(b) **may have been guilty of misconduct, ***
*the President shall direct the Council to [231B] , or the Council may, on its own motion,] inquire into the matter. *

*(6) If, after inquiring into the matter, the Council reports to the President that it is of the opinion, *
*(a) that the Judge is incapable of performing the duties of his office or has been guilty of misconduct, and *
*(b) that he should be removed from office, *
*the President may remove the Judge from office. *

Once again, all this means the judiciary is independent of the President and the government, since they do not have the power to sack him. A very pathetic episode by some lawyers, and even more by the Chief Justice who doesnt know his own Constitution even. For a Chief Justice to politicize this issue into a judiciary versus Musharaf case is scandalous, when he of all people should know full well, it is the judiciary versus the judiciary because Musharraf is not going to decide his fate before the SJCouncil.

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And let me guess, who knows the constitution best on this site, the dumb who has been shouting hos lungs out that governor is elected.

The height of dumbness is you continue to spew the dumb shyt around. The steel mill privatization was stopped by CJ coz it was being sold at extremely lwo price. The price offered was less than the price of land on which it is bild.

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eh sir lest you get carried away by emotions, may I inform you that the CJ did NOT object to privatization but the manner in which it was carried out for this particular deal. Please read the verdict.

:slight_smile:

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The Steel Mills were sold to a Russian-Pakistani-Saudi Consortium. for nearly $400 million. The price of the Steel mills was estimated at $482 million. This is not a bad price under any bidding circumstances. It all depends on the prospects of the companies concerned. In a bid, the highest bidder gets the deal. In this case the Russians were offering the most, so they clinched it. It’s not possible to artificially lower the price for a favoured friend in this case. Think about why, if you can..

The land was not included or sold off in the transaction, only the Steel mills were. “Out of 19000 acres of the land of PSMC around 14500 acres worth about US $ 800 million has been separated from the transaction, which would be used by the government for appropriate project, he added.”
http://www.privatisation.gov.pk/Handout/HO-AR-06/Mar-06/HO-31032006%20Pakistan%20Steel%20Mills%20Corporation%20(PSMC)%20Receives%20Highest%20Offer%20of%20Rs.21.680.htm

How can the Pakistani (Habib Group) be getting it at a low price when the Mills have been privatized by mainly foreign groups (such as the Russians and Saudis) and also bid in front of the media? Are you saying that Musharraf is also good friends with Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works (Russia)..majority stakeholder in the Steel Mills Transaction?

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Re: Pakistan's top judge is suspended (Merged)

Corruption haters be strong......This opposition generated drama is the biggest crap of today....

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Re: Pakistan's top judge is suspended (Merged)

Read?! you give him far too much credit!

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Any information about the whereabouts of Justice Rana Bhagwandas?

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Any proof that CJ Iftikhar was involved in his son’s appointment to a senior police position?

Different federal and provincial authorities have been formally issuing orders during the past one and a half year to favour Dr Arsalan Iftikhar, the deposed CJ’s son, in a manner that is unique in the history of the country. If Arsalan’s case is probed, it gives a much more serious charge sheet against the government authorities than the already charge sheeted Justice Iftikhar.

On the official files, there is no evidence of any formal request from the deposed CJ seeking any favours from the government for his son or that Justice Iftikhar in any way had pressurized the authorities to do the ‘undoables’ for his son-Dr Arsalan Iftikhar.

The facts of the deposed CJ’s son case show that the government extra-ordinarily and unprecedently facilitated Dr Arsalan for his training in the police department. As far as the documentary evidence is concerned Justice Iftikhar comes in the picture only for being the father of Dr Arsalan. There is nothing in the files to prove that Justice Iftikhar had written or verbally requested the authorities to favour Dr Arsalan.](The News International: Latest News Breaking, World, Entertainment, Royal News)

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I have heard that the Pakistani govt. are trying to get hold of Rana Bhagwandas who is on leave in India. Apparantly, they cannot get hold of him because his cell phone is switched off.

Is this true? I hope he applies for political asylam in India.

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Hasnt gone in still I see with some people. The inquiry is there to determine whether there is enough proof to sack the Chief Justice. The Constitution says the President only need be of the opinion that Chief Justice is corrupt for him to call the SJCouncil to inquire into the matter. The President will not decide the fate of the Chief Justice, it will be the Council.

The only thing I hate more than backward ignorant people, are backward ignorant people who cannot admit when they're wrong, despite the glaringly clear evidence. All corrupt to the hilt if they had the chance.

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Even if he was, action should be taken against the people who allowed, accommodatd, and facilitated the Chief Justice’s outrageous demands and perks…Afterall, his son must have been appointed at his position on the orders of some official of the interior minstry, the charges should be brought against that individual not the CJ…

Besides, these allegations can easily be applied to over 90 percent of the politicians, bureaucrats, military officiers, officials of the public and private institutions and companies…This is nothing new and infact it is part and parcel of our elite/VIP culture… Nepotism and hookup is as Pakistani as Ranjit Singh…

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Re: Pakistan's top judge is suspended (Merged)

as they alaashi wa al-murtashi
the people aho accomodated the demands by CJ
as well as the CJ himself
both should be held accountable.

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The president is bound by his constitution to take action on the Chief Justice. The Constitution does not force him to act on the police from what i've seen. How do you equate a senior police position to be an official of the interior ministry? It sounds more like your corrupt "independent" judiciary is bribing away or making deals with another independent body, the police. My opinion is Musharraf should crack down on both of them strongly. Investigate all these underhand dealings and punish both judiciary and police. But th Chief Justice deserves the biggest whipping of them all, he is the man in a senior position of power and responsibility after all.

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^ I agree a strong crack down.....against these corrupt "honorable" officials..

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That's all nice and noble...but let's see if the benevolent dictator mushie acts on it...He's had 8 years to root out the corruption, but in the recent years he has been the biggest patron of corrupt elements...Infact about the only time the charges of corruption and the threat of prosecution is brought into the fray is when keeping the dissenters and opposition in line...