ISLAMABAD, 15 June 2007 — A lawyer for Pakistan’s chief justice took a swipe at President Pervez Musharraf yesterday for allegedly consulting intelligence chiefs instead of legal experts on the suspension of the top judge as thousands of lawyers and opposition activists held rallies across the country.

He asked the court to react like the army did when former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif tried to sack Gen. Musharraf.

Justice Khalilur Rahman Ramday, heading the 13-member Supreme Court bench, said, “Every institution reacts according to its own tradition.”

Musharraf ousted chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry on March 9 for alleged misconduct, a move which has sparked the biggest opposition movement of his eight-year military rule.

Chaudhry’s main lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan told the Supreme Court, where the judge is challenging his suspension, that spy chiefs pressured the chief justice to quit when he was first summoned to Musharraf’s residence.

“The president should have talked to his legal team instead of banking on his intelligence chiefs, who blackmailed the judge in a bid to extract his resignation,” Ahsan said. He claimed that even the government’s chief counsel was not consulted before Musharraf filed charges against Chaudhry.

“Consulting intelligence chiefs on a legal issue is just like seeking the opinion of a lorry drivers’ union on purchase of Boeing aircraft,” he added.

Two intelligence chiefs and the head of Musharraf’s chief of staff have all filed affidavits to the court disputing Chaudhry’s account of the events of March 9.

They also accused the chief justice of wanting Musharraf to dissolve Parliament and hold new elections under his supervision, and of asking the intelligence services to spy on other judges.

The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to formally begin hearing Chaudhry’s petition against the government charges after a month of legal arguments.

Meanwhile, thousands of lawyers and opposition supporters called on President Musharraf to quit in fresh protests over the suspension of the chief justice yesterday.

Around 3,000 people in the eastern city of Lahore chanted “Go, Musharraf, go” and waved black flags and banners, officials and witnesses said. They also called for free and fair elections to be held as soon as possible.

The majority were lawyers but supporters of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, together with workers from the party of former cricketer Imran Khan, also took part.

“The lawyers’ movement against President Gen. Musharraf will continue until he quits,” said Muhammad Ahsan Bhoon, president of the Lahore High Court Bar Association.

Some 200 protesters formed a human chain outside the provincial assembly in the southwestern city of Quetta, but were moved away by police because of a visit by US Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher.

Another 300 lawyers rallied in Karachi, where more than 40 people were killed in political violence on March 12. Opposition parties in the southern port city have called for a complete strike today.

Small protests were also staged in Peshawar, Multan and other cities.