Reinstated, Chief Justice Bears Hopes of Pakistan: New York Times

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — At a Supreme Court hearing on Thursday in a property dispute, the defendant, Gul Zameen, insisted that Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry personally take his case rather than assign it to other justices, as his opponent requested.

“Please, I want you to hear the case,” said Mr. Zameen, 55, who has been fighting over a house in North-West Frontier Province since 1991.

Much to his relief, Mr. Chaudhry agreed.

“We hope he will do justice,” Mr. Zameen’s son, Shahid Rafiq, said later. “Not only with us but with everybody.”

Since returning to the bench last week for the first time since he was ousted two years ago by Pervez Musharraf, then Pakistan’s president, Mr. Chaudhry has faced a groundswell of expectations from people like Mr. Zameen and from the politicians and lawyers who struggled to get him reinstated. Just as his ouster became a national symbol of political interference in the judiciary, millions of Pakistanis have invested his return with hopes that he will set every injustice right.

“Many people saw him as a savior, and he is a savior for them, even though the lawyers’ movement was essentially aimed at upholding the rule of law,” said Babar Sattar, a constitutional lawyer, who warned that such unrealistic hopes were bound to produce disappointments. “Some expectations will be frustrated, as a lot of different people have different expectations.”

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The Lawyers’ Crusade: NYT

By JAMES TRAUB

Published: June 1, 2008

In April, on the highway outside the little Punjabi town of Renala Khurd, Aitzaz Ahsan was waylaid by a crowd of seemingly deranged lawyers. The advocates, who wore black suits, white shirts and black ties, were not actually insane; they just seemed that way because they were so overcome with excitement at greeting the mastermind of Pakistan’s lawyers’ movement, perhaps the most consequential outpouring of liberal, democratic energy in the Islamic world in recent years. The 62-year-old Ahsan was on his way to address the bar association of Okara, 10 miles away, but the lawyers, and the farmers and shopkeepers gathered with them, were not about to let him leave. They boiled around the car, shouting slogans. “Who should our leaders be like?” they cried. “Like Aitzaz!” And, “How many are prepared to die for you?” “Countless! Countless!”

Pakistan’s lawyers were not, in fact, courting martyrdom, but their willingness to stand up for their convictions, and to suffer for them, has transformed their country’s legal and political landscape. After Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, demanded the resignation of Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, in March of last year, the lawyers boycotted the courts and held massive rallies across the country. The movement was managed by a small group led by Ahsan, a prominent legislator and one of Pakistan’s leading constitutional lawyers. Ahsan also took Chaudhry on as a client, and last July persuaded the Supreme Court to restore Chaudhry to the bench — an astonishing rebuke to Musharraf.

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