Lawyers want to stand up and be counted

Regardless of the fact, how big the march was, one thing is clear that it has put a new element in our history and has given a new thinking to the millions of Pakistanis who watched it on the TV screens and millions others abroad. The lawyers' movement awakened even the ex-servicemen to the need of ridding the country of dictatorship and made them unveil the facts and incidents, which in the past had cost heavily to the nation and broke its backbone so much so that it was as not able to stay straight afterwards. Following the ex-servicemen, the former diplomats also rose to the occasion and sided with the long march while exposing the factors which had damaged the country under civil and the military rule. The legal fraternity was much satisfied after leadership of the ruling coalition promised them to restore the judges within 30 days of the formation of the federal government through a resolution and executive order. This could not be materialised and later on the time was extended to May 12 to have more debate on the issue. But the commitment was not honoured, upon which the lawyers decided to take to the long march. They spot the Parliament for not doing the needful as in their eyes, General Pervez Musharraf as president was a 'lame duck' now still the political side was lacking spirit to pass a resolution and executive order.

The PML-N, whose leadership had suffered seven-year 'exile' and other hardships allegedly through Pervez Musharraf, fully supported the lawyers cause of judges as it was to serve a big blow to the retired general in addition to accelerating his overthrow from the power.

 But judges are not being put back to the office and instead PPP government has tagged the same with a constitutional package which is hard to be approved without requisite strength in the Senate and taking the pro-Musharraf political parties on board which, however, may not come about without protecting the November 3 action. This is not acceptable to the lawyers and their supporters. In this situation, the strength of SC judges has been increased to 29 by way of allocating salary for that number in the federal budget. They have also rejected the same. The restoration of judges despite the budgetary allocation for 29 judges, may not come into effect unless something is done of the PCO. They take the same another measure to protect the PCO action and the sitting judges. The chagrin of the lawyers on this count was visible at the lawyers' meeting on Thursday and they departed from the city in the evening also carrying sentiments against it.

In Islamabad diplomatic and international focus will be on them, hence their show and demands are bound to attract wide-scale attention too.