Amid the brewing controversy over the timings of treason trial against former President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, another interesting event is about to unfold that will have a deep impact on Pakistani politics. The retirement of Chief Justice of Pakistan Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry on Dec. 12 is being awaited with considerable keenness. During his tenure, he has emerged as the lone warrior fighting corruption in society. He apparently left no stone unturned in enforcing rule of law but success eluded him. The common man was happy but the influential segments — the army, politicians and the bureaucracy — were clearly unnerved.
The previous government tried it best to ignore his judgments and the current government also does not appear to be every enthusiastic either. A constitution amendment bill to extend his term in office for two years beyond the age of 65 was seen as eyewash. The ruling party never really tried to save the intended legislation from being thrown out of the Parliament. Chaudhry made some mistakes, the biggest being endorsing Pervez Musharraf’s military rule in October 1999. Yet another blot on his career was taking oath as a Supreme Court judge on a constitution defaced by the former strongman.
He effectively resisted pressure when Musharraf tried to forcibly remove him from the coveted office in March of 2007. Chaudhry knew well that, as head of the country’s highest judicial forum, he enjoyed constitutional protection. He along with his family was placed under house arrest and completely disconnected with the outside world. That brought about lawyers’ agitation, which soon snowballed into a mass movement, and was recorded in history books as the biggest lawyers’ movement in Pakistan. Gaining strength from the tremendous public support and his own legal fraternity, Chaudhry when restored in the aftermath of a long march led by Nawaz Sharif, was a completely changed man. Months of incarceration and humiliation at the hands of the army had taught him a lesson that the job of a judge was to provide relief to the people, and not be seen as an ineffective wing of the administration. Within a few days of his reinstatement, he launched a struggle to clean the administration of the maladies destroying it. His efforts brought back quite a huge amount of stolen money back to the treasury. A number of senior civil servants and even those in the military were removed or jailed. Some of them were brought back from self-exile under his orders to face the consequences of their actions.
The military and its elite intelligence wing, the ISI, considering themselves unchallenged masters of the country, too had to face the music, when snubbed in his courtroom for picking up persons and keeping them in illegal custody. A three-star general, serving as defense secretary after retirement, was ordered to appear before him, and served contempt notice for disobeying the court to produce “missing” persons. The army’s plea that their personnel were governed by a Special Army Act, and cannot be tried in a civilian court, was also rejected.
Criticism from a handful but reputed figures like Aitzaz Ahsan, and Asma Jehangir that Chaudhry was running a parallel administration at the cost of the litigant public, was shrugged off. Whether this will really happen remains to be seen. Most of the lawyers, however, doubt that the path chosen by Chaudhry would be followed by his successors. That feeling in itself is a matter of immense relief for the military, high government officials, and politicians, generally considered to be masters of the people, instead of being their servants. Coming weeks will be very interesting.
