ISLAMABAD, 16 March 2007 — President Pervez Musharraf said yesterday that he would accept the decision of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) in the case against suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

“I promise you that judiciary will decide, we don’t have to interfere in the matter, even I don’t have the right,” Musharraf told a rally in eastern town of Gujranwala organized by Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi.

“Whatever decision they take, I will accept it.” Chaudhry has already told the panel of five judges sitting on the SJC that he does not expect a fair hearing from them.

Referring to the elections, Musharraf said free and fair elections would be held this year. He said he would not tolerate a corrupt government. President Musharraf urged voters to elect moderates and reject the extremists. Analysts believe he can obtain another five-year term from either the sitting assemblies or the new ones.

Lawyers are expected to continue their weeklong agitation against the government’s action, religious parties are planning protests today after Friday prayers, while the media is smarting over attempts to muzzle its reporting and commenting on the case. The chief justice was suspended last Friday after a meeting with Musharraf, and his subsequent confinement at his Islamabad home has outraged many Pakistanis.

“He is like a class-A prisoner,” said Syed Iftikhar Gillani, former law minister in Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party government, who was one of the few people to have gained access to see the suspended chief justice.

The opposition has made Chaudhry’s suspension an issue for political gains. “The matter is being politicized and efforts are being made to gain political mileage out of it,” said Musharraf.

A lawyer for Chaudhry said the SJC lacked the authority to suspend him on March 9 and the haste in which the action was taken raised more doubts.

“It has no authority to remove him because it can only recommend. It is an advisory body. It cannot make him dysfunctional,” lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan told Reuters.

A civil judge, Saeed Khurshid, posted in Bahawalpur city in central Punjab province, resigned in protest over the treatment of the chief justice.

“What protection can you give to me or my colleagues in an institution where a sitting chief justice is being humiliated,” said Khurshid.”