By Carlotta Gall
Published: March 18, 2009
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan: The reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry culminated a two-year struggle by Pakistan's lawyers to safeguard an independent judiciary, highlighted by long processions, sometimes violent clashes, and the repeated arrest and detentions of the leaders of the movement.
As they celebrated on Monday, his supporters speculated about what the chief justice would do once back on the bench. Having been restored by a popular outpouring led by Pakistan's lawyers, the chief justice will have more moral authority than ever, some of his backers said — and with it the potential to further jolt Pakistan's politics.
Through his tribulations, the 60-year-old judge has become the embodiment of the Pakistani people's desire for change and for a fairer society. But even on Monday, the day of the government's announcement, he remained an enigmatic hero, declining to comment to the news media.
He instead stood on the balcony of his house, waving and thanking the jubilant crowd of lawyers and political workers for their efforts in winning his reinstatement. The expectations among his supporters were extraordinarily high.
Muneer A. Malik, one of the Supreme Court lawyers who ran the campaign for Mr. Chaudhry's reinstatement, said the chief justice was now under enormous pressure to deliver an independent judiciary after so many in the judicial profession had risked so much in the struggle for his reinstatement.
China likely to be stronger after crisis Pakistan turns onto an uncertain pathPolice station bombed in Tibetan area of ChinaSeveral lawyers predicted that Mr. Chaudhry would open cases against both President Asif Ali Zardari and his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, concerning past deeds.
One of the first issues he had to tackle was the position of all the judges appointed under President Musharraf, and the ruling they gave to validate Mr. Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule, Mr. Malik said.
"He has to stand watch and protect our independence, and ensure access to justice for the weaker sections of society," he said of the chief justice.
For Mr. Chaudhry, the government's announcement of his reinstatement ends an on-and-off suspension, with intervals of house arrest, that began on March 9, 2007, when Mr. Musharraf took action against him, apparently fearing that the judge would prevent the general from seeking another term.
Before then, there was little to indicate that Justice Chaudhry would become a crusader against the powerful military establishment, friends and supporters say.
Born in 1948 to a lower-middle-class family in the small provincial town of Quetta, he studied and practiced law there.
He became a judge on the high court of Baluchistan in 1990, was appointed to the Pakistani Supreme Court in 2000 and became chief justice in 2005.
At first, he accepted military rule by Mr. Musharraf, who as head of the armed forces had seized power in a coup in 1999. Mr. Chaudhry was one of the judges who validated constitutional changes that the general pushed through to consolidate his rule.
Lawyers who worked with Chief Justice Chaudhry, and later became supporters, acknowledge that at the time they did not like him. He was known for losing his temper and throwing files back in their faces.
"He acted like a Texan bandit," Hassan Akhtar, 34, a lawyer who was trained in Britain, said.
Chief Justice Chaudhry worked hard to clear a backlog of cases at the Supreme Court and took on politically controversial issues, but lawyers complained that he rushed cases through, opened his own cases to address injustices he had come across, and forced lawyers and government officials to jump to his orders.
He began to emerge as a maverick chief justice in 2006 when he blocked the privatization of the Pakistan Steel Mills Corporation, infuriating the prime minister at the time, Shaukat Aziz.
He also took on the military establishment over hundreds of missing people who were alleged to have been held without judicial process in secret detention centers, as Pakistan's part in the campaign against terrorism.
As Mr. Musharraf began to look ahead to securing a second term as president, which would involve bypassing constitutional constraints, he sought to replace Chief Justice Chaudhry with someone more biddable.
Two years ago, when the general called Mr. Chaudhry to his military residence and, in the presence of several other military officials, asked the judge to resign, he refused. The president did not expect the chief justice to show such courage and stubbornness.
Mr. Musharraf dismissed him anyway, setting off a constitutional crisis. The refrain among average people in this impoverished country was that the attempt to remove the justice summed up all the social and economic inequities they suffered at the hands of a corrupt and abusive system.
"Whoever gets power here, gets his way," said Maulana Muhammad Ameer Khan, a lawyer and cleric from the strife-torn North-West Frontier Province, who said the chief justice had helped resolve a case for him three years ago.
"Unless the rule of law on the ground is achieved," he said, "the situation will not improve."
People rallied to the judge's cause, among them the politician and lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan and an influential group of constitutional lawyers who had long opposed the various periods of military rule in Pakistan's short history. Together they orchestrated a campaign of motorcades taking the chief justice to speak to bar associations around the country.
The marathon road show gathered thousands of lawyers and demonstrators and drew hours of television coverage, which fatally undermined Mr. Musharraf's hold on power.
The Supreme Court reinstated Mr. Chaudhry in July 2007, and Mr. Musharraf managed to secure his election to another presidential term that October. But as the constitutionality of his election came under increased questioning, he declared a state of emergency on Nov. 3, suspending the Constitution and placing Mr. Chaudhry under house arrest once again.
Mr. Chaudhry was released four months later, after the Pakistan Peoples Party won elections, led by Mr. Zardari after the death of his wife, Benazir Bhutto on Dec. 27, 2007, in a suicide bombing attack.
The new government promised to establish an independent judiciary, but it repeatedly delayed any decision on reinstating the chief justice.
Underlying the reluctance was the deal that Ms. Bhutto struck with Mr. Musharraf before her death that allowed her to return to the country from self-imposed exile and have all corruption cases against her, her husband and other party officials dropped.
Mr. Zardari, who was elected president last September, gave repeated pledges to his rival and coalition partner, Nawaz Sharif, that he would reinstate the judges, but he never did, until now.
