Pakistan’s chief justice has been replaced after he refused an order to swear an oath of allegiance to emergency provisions underpinning military rule.
The official APP news agency said Said-uz Zaman Siddiqi did not heed the overnight decree and was replaced by Justice Irshad Hassan Khan.
Court sources said six of the 13 Supreme Court judges, including Siddiqi, had refused to swear the new oath, barring them from operating under the military government which seized power in a bloodless October 12 coup.
Army ruler General Pervez Musharraf defended the order in brief remarks to the official APP news agency.
“Whatever has happened is in the interests of the country,” he said, in his first remarks on the order.
Law Minister and Attorney-General Aziz Munshi played down the refusal of Siddiqi and an unknown number of other judges to heed the order. “It is their own choice,” he told APP.
The military issued instructions that all Supreme and High court judges should declare a new oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) they issued after seizing power.
The order appeared aimed at reinforcing the legitimacy of military rule, which is being contested in the Supreme Court by ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif.
Legal sources said the new oath amounted to swearing allegiance to the army-led administration which suspended parliament and issued emergency constitutional provisions after it came to power.
Musharraf, who declared himself chief executive after the coup, has promised to revive the economy and build a new democracy but has been harried by Sharif’s Pakistan Muslim League party.
CHALLENGE FROM BHUTTO’S PARTY
He also faces a challenge from the Pakistan People’s Party of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who has not returned to Pakistan since being convicted of corruption last year during Sharif’s tenure. She has called from exile for democracy’s return.
Western governments have taken a wait-and-see attitude towards military rule but have called in vain on Musharraf to announce a timetable for the restoration of democracy.
The trial of Sharif, his brother and five others on charges of hijacking and attempted murder was due to start in Karachi on Wednesday but their defence asked for an adjournment.
Sharif’s backers are trying to get the Supreme Court to rule that the army takeover was illegal in an attempt to get Sharif’s administration reinstated.
Court sources in Sharif’s hometown Lahore, capital of the powerful Punjab province, said 25 High Court judges there had heeded the government order and swore new oaths but two had failed to appear.
The oaths were administered in Islamabad by President Rafiq Tarar, who stayed on at the army’s bidding after it toppled Sharif accusing him of wrecking state institutions and the economy.
Provincial governors were due to administer the oaths in the Sindh and the North West Frontier Province, while all the five judges in Balochistan took the oath, officials said.
Failure to take the new oath would amount to disqualification, legal sources said.
The situation recalled a similar confrontation between the previous military ruler General Zia- ul-Haq and the legal system.
Several judges refused to take a new oath to his government, which ruled from 1977 until 1988, and lost their jobs.
Is this the start of the “unacceptable” face of this government. I feel that everybody should condemn this and make their feelings known, otherwise the press will be next.