ISLAMABAD, 30 May 2007 — A lawyer for Pakistan’s suspended chief judge said yesterday President Pervez Musharraf acted out of malice when he confronted the judge nearly three months ago and tried to persuade him to resign.
Lawyers for suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry summed up their argument yesterday and for the first time, released details of what happened to Chaudhry when Musharraf tried to persuade him to resign on March 9.
Chaudhry’s lawyer, Aitzaz Ahsan, told the court Musharraf was motivated by personal malice when he summoned Chaudhry and grilled him at the army chief’s headquarters. “The president has no authority to call the chief justice and grill him. It was his personal malice against the chief justice,” Ahsan said. Musharraf has denied any personal animosity toward Chaudhry and has criticized lawyers for politicizing the issue. Musharraf has said the courts must be allowed to rule on the case.
In an eight-page affidavit presented to the court, Chaudhry said Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and the heads of three security agencies had confronted him. Musharraf and two of the security chiefs had insisted that he resign. Chaudhry said he was kept against his will for hours but he denied wrongdoing and refused to resign.
The president’s prime concern is not properly investigating the charges that led to Chaudhry’s March 9 suspension, “but just to remove the chief justice from his office,” Ahsan said.
“This is the personal malice I’m alleging,” Ahsan told the court. “The malice is of the president.” He said he would provide evidence of malice later in his arguments.
In the affidavit Chaudhry said Musharraf and the bosses of his intelligence services pressured him to resign over allegations that he secured cars for his family from the Supreme Court.
But Chaudhry was quoted as saying he rejected Musharraf’s offers of another job and told him: “I wouldn’t resign. I am innocent.”
“This ignited the fury” of Musharraf, said the affidavit, a copy of which was made available to the press. “He stood up angrily and left the room.” Chaudhry said he was detained for more than five hours at Musharraf’s office and was allowed to go home after an acting chief justice was sworn in.
While leaving, Chaudhry said the military intelligence head told him: “This is a bad day, now you are taking a separate way.” The intelligence official was not identified by name.
Chaudhry said he believes his official residence in Islamabad has been “bugged” and that intelligence agents “keep an eye on those who come and visit me.”
Lawyers and the opposition are vehemently contesting President Musharraf’s attempt to remove Chaudhry, and they have mounted a campaign against the government, calling for the restoration of democracy.
The campaign is the most serious challenge to the authority of the president, who is also army chief, since he seized power in 1999.
For two weeks the Supreme Court has been listening to legal arguments aimed at determining what judicial body should rule on the unspecified government accusations against Chaudhry, leveled on March 9.
Lawyers for Chaudhry want a full bench of the Supreme Court to hear the accusations and not a five-judge panel.
The crisis has blown up in the run-up to presidential and parliamentary elections.
Musharraf aims to be re-elected by the sitting national and provincial assemblies in September or October, about a month before they are due to be dissolved for a general election.
Meanwhile, the legal case at the heart of the crisis is inching its way through the Supreme Court.
Government lawyers have argued that the five-judge panel, known as the Supreme Judicial Council, was activated in accordance with the constitution when Musharraf suspended Chaudhry on March 9.
The government is also rejecting a petition calling for Musharraf to be made a respondent in the case.
Musharraf has said he would abide by the decision of the Supreme Court but a ruling in Chaudhry’s favor - that the full Supreme Court should hear the accusations against him - would be a major setback for the president.
