ISLAMABAD, 19 April 2007 — The Supreme Court of Pakistan yesterday admitted for hearing a petition filed by the suspended chief justice challenging the presidential reference against him.
Iftikhar Chaudhry earlier challenged the Supreme Judicial Council’s right to hear misconduct charges brought by President Pervez Musharraf against him, and called for the case to be transferred to the top court. The court will take up the case today.
In a 150-page petition Chaudhry challenged the reference against him and demanded that the hearing be public. He also challenged the jurisdiction of the panel to hear his case. He said the panel’s composition was not in accordance with Article 209 of the constitution.
Chaudhry’s lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan said that an acting chief justice was not competent to head the Supreme Judicial Council. He further said that cases under Article 209 were pending against two members of the SJC — Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar and Justice Chaudhry Iftikhar Hussain of the Lahore High Court — and therefore they are not eligible to hear the case.
Aitzaz later told a news conference the case against Chaudhry was filed out of vengeance because he had handed down verdicts that were detrimental to the interests of those in power.
Verdicts in the Karachi Steel Mills and the privatization cases antagonized some vested interests, he said. Chaudhry’s move to take up cases of missing people also angered the ruling elite, he added. He said only a full bench of the Supreme Court, headed by a permanent chief justice was competent to hear such a case and not the SJC.
Meanwhile, Chaudhry was cheered on by hundreds of lawyers and flag-waving activists, who chanted “Go Musharraf, go” as he arrived for the fifth hearing by the panel since his suspension on March 9. The top court is expected to rule today on the motion filed by Chaudhry’s lawyers calling for the panel’s hearings to be suspended.
The panel of five judges adjourned its hearing until April 24. The judicial crisis is regarded as presenting the biggest challenge to Musharraf’s authority since he came to power.
Opposition groups and the legal community see the government’s attempt to suspend Chaudhry as an attack on the judiciary’s independence, but so far their countrywide protests have failed to develop into mass demonstrations.
Analysts say while the crisis has weakened the president, he will weather the storm because of army support.
Police detained scores of activists on Tuesday in a bid to thwart the protests. But a festive atmosphere dominated yesterday’s rally as bands of protesters carrying the colorful banners of political parties mixed with black-and-white suited lawyers and pastry sellers on the street outside the court.
While lawyers walked freely in and out of the Supreme Court building in central Islamabad, politicians stayed outside making speeches, with an eye on elections due later this year or in early 2008.
Scores of police and paramilitary troops with batons, helmets and riot shields stood at the roadside outside the court, but did not intervene.
“We are here one, to strengthen the resolve of the chief justice... and two, to send a message to the other judges, look, the public will not tolerate judgment on the directives of GHQ (army headquarters),” Imran Khan, leader of the Tehrik-e-Insaf “Movement for Justice” party, told Reuters.
