History
In March 2007 President Pervez Musharraf suspended Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Supreme Court Chief Justice, for misuse of his position. The suspension of Chaudhry was met with protests from Pakistan's legal community. Adliya Bachao Tehreek ("Save the Judiciary Movement") was formed to get Chaudhry reinstated, and to maintain the independence of the judiciary.
The movement was led by Presidents of the Supreme Court Bar Association of Pakistan Munir A. Malik, Aitzaz Ahsan, and Ali Ahmad Kurd along with others lawyer leaders.
On July 20, 2007, the Council (Supreme Court of Pakistan) restored Iftikhar Chaudhry as the Chief Justice of Pakistan and dismissed the charges against him.
On November 3, 2007, dictator Pervez Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in Pakistan and again dismissed the Chief Justice along with sixty other judges, illegally and unconstitutionally, who refused to take oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order. Lawyers reacted to the dismissals, and emergency rule, by boycotting the courts, taking part in street protests and hunger strikes. People from outside the legal profession also took part in these protests.
The protests, and the international pressure triggered by them, forced Musharraf to end emergency rule in December 2007; however Chaudry and the other judges were not reinstated and the continued protests contributed to Musharraf's resignation in August 2008. The election of Asif Zardari as President resulted in a lull in activity by the Lawyers' Movement for most of 2008. Despite supporting the movement before becoming president, Zardari did not reinstate Chaudry.
Zardari's decision in February 2009 to declare President's rule in Punjab resulted in protests, encouraged by the deposed representative of the province, Nawaz Sharif, leader of the opposition party, PML-N. Sharif began calling for the reinstatement of Chaudry, reigniting the Lawyers' Movement and forcing Zardari to meet their demands. Chaudry was restored as the Chief Justice by Zardari and his Prime Minister, Yousaf Raza Gillani, in March 2009.
Read more about this topic: Lawyers' Movement
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of modern art is also the history of the progressive loss of art’s audience. Art has increasingly become the concern of the artist and the bafflement of the public.”
—Henry Geldzahler (1935–1994)
“Every generation rewrites the past. In easy times history is more or less of an ornamental art, but in times of danger we are driven to the written record by a pressing need to find answers to the riddles of today.... In times of change and danger when there is a quicksand of fear under men’s reasoning, a sense of continuity with generations gone before can stretch like a lifeline across the scary present and get us past that idiot delusion of the exceptional Now that blocks good thinking.”
—John Dos Passos (1896–1970)