Aitzaz says independent judiciary best weapon against terrorism

NEW YORK: - Aitzaz Ahsan, president of the Supreme Court Bar Association,  who is leading the movement for reinstatement of some 60 judges deposed by President Pervbez Musharraf, says an independent judiciary is the best weapon against terrorism in Pakistan.

Ahsan made the remarks at a gathering of the New York City Bar Association, where he thanked the U.S. legal community for its support.

"The most effective weapon against terror," said Ahsan "is the broad mass of people of a given country who have enforceable rights. You deprive them of enforceable rights, and you deprive them of recourse to justice, and they will fall into the more corrupt, criminal justice that the extremists are ready to provide."

He said the delay in reinstating the judges is "purposefully being sanctioned and supported" by the Bush administration. It's "silence" has "stalled the process".

Ahsan criticized the White House for not speaking "a word, a syllable" to protest the five-month house arrest of Pakistan's [Supreme Court] Chief Justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The [Bush-Cheney] Administration had been silent because it "does not want to embarrass" President Pervez

Musharraf. He added that the silence is "noticed in Pakistan"

and is "a tragedy in the larger context and canvas of Pakistan's place

in the world."

Without the reinstatement of the ousted judges and the return of the rule of law, Mr. Ahsan said, the "broad masses" in Pakistan are without "enforceable rights."

In that environment, he asserted, "extremists will encroach upon the

middle ground," leaving as vulnerable a front-line state in the

'war against terror'.