I’m delighted that, finally, the Pakistani government has given way to pressure from lawyers and Nawaz Sharif’s PML-N party, and decided to reinstate the Chief Justice Iktikhar Chaudhry and the remaining handful of judges deposed by General Musharraf when he suspended the constitution in 2007. The government should have done this long ago: if it feels weakened by its capitulation today, it has only itself to blame. Those lawyers who’ve successfully agitated, first against military rule and more recently for these reinstatements can justifiably celebrate. So can all of Pakistan.

I hope the success of the lawyers’ protest may be a historic turning-point for Pakistan, that Pakistan’s judges and lawyers will continue to insist the highest standards in public life and will protect the constitution as determinedly from now as they did over the last two years. Democracy and the rule of law are far too important to be left to lawyers, of course, but far, far better to have the country’s conscience kept by a legal establishment committed to democracy than by a military establishment which has so often suspended it. At least, now, the professional middle classes must be considered a serious rival to the power of the army and other vested interests.

2009-03-16T14:48:00+00:00Tags: , |