Return on PPP's terms

The N-League and the lawyers had called for restoration of November 2 judiciary through an executive order backed by the parliamentary resolution, on which the PPP thrice showed a written commitment. The re-appointment process through the executive authority of the President, indeed meets half of what was being previously sought at the political level. The PML(N) and the lawyers demanded an executive order to revert the judges to their original position ignoring the PCO of November 3. But the PPP, political analysts say, executing a plan to firm up its grip on power played its cards well. In the first instance it obliged the N-League to soften its stand which helped it push the judges issue behind impeachment avoiding hype that restoration in fact could itself work to throw Pervez Musharraf out of power, which the PPP reckoned as the most difficult and big task. And after using judges-emotional PML(N) against Musharraf and ultimately compelling it out of the coalition, the PPP is now realigning its alliance with the MQM and other parties to lead the government in the centre and three other provinces and to resolve the judges issue as per its own choice. Run with the hare and hunt with the hounds!

The PPP government never said it was loath to judges’ reinstatement but the mode it has adopted at present, is not only to serve for the purpose of getting it done as per its suitability and scheme of things, but to also curb the lawyers movement and divide unity of the deposed judges. The fresh oath by a section of deposed judges, has elicited a strong reaction from the community which has condemned it as a loss of impatience by them and conceding to the constitutionality of November 3 action of General Pervez Musharraf at a stage when the legal fraternity was geared up to take the cause of their restoration to a new height by pressing this demand through sit-in protests at bar level all over the country. Lawyers during their struggle after November 3, gave a hero’s image to the deposed judges and inculcated in the public mind that they would ensure the independence of judiciary, which has been the cause of their struggle since March 9 last year.

Reports suggest that up to seven judges of the Lahore High Court and two from the Peshawar High Court are also lined for re-appointment and fresh oath. If that happened, it would cause more disappointment to the lawyers who, however have not shown any mind to abandon their struggle, succumbing to this situation. Admiring the word of a deposed SC judge, Justice Khalilur Rahman Ramday, a lawyer quoted him saying lawyers struggle was not the question of putting the judges back in the office but to see if the country would have an independent judiciary, potent enough to sustain the law in the eye of a dictator and against unlawful acts of the powerful.