Pakistan needs free judiciary for democracy-judge
By Aftab Borka
LAHORE, Pakistan, June 12 (Reuters) - A free judiciary is necessary for democracy to function in Pakistan, the country's deposed chief justice told protesting lawyers and activists who he said had started a revolution they had to complete.
Former top judge Iftikhar Chaudhry was addressing a cross-country rally to press the new government to restore him and other judges President Pervez Musharraf fired last year.
"If there's an independent judiciary the democratic system will work," Chaudhry told the crowd of hundreds in the city of Lahore, the half-way point of the rally, on Thursday.
Lawyers have been at the forefront of a campaign against staunch U.S. ally Musharraf since he tried to dismiss Chaudhry in March last year. Chaudhry and dozens of other judges were purged after Musharraf declared emergency rule in November.
The rally, dubbed a "long march" though the lawyers are in a motor convoy, set off from the southeastern city of Multan on Wednesday for Islamabad, where they are due to protest in front of parliament on Friday.
"You people have started a revolution which has to reach its logical conclusion," said Chaudhry, who was mobbed by supporters when he arrived in Lahore on Wednesday.
The protest will ramp up pressure on Musharraf to step down. He has been isolated since his allies were trounced in a February election. Opponents are demanding he quit and face trial.
It is also a challenge to the two-month-old coalition government led by the party of slain former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and a threat to its tenuous unity.
The coalition has been almost completely preoccupied with the question of the judges and the related issue of Musharraf's fate despite a looming economic crisis and militant threat.
Analysts say if Chaudhry were reinstated, he would be expected to take up legal challenges to Musharraf's presidency that could lead to his ouster.
But Chaudhry might also review an amnesty that wiped out corruption cases against Bhutto, her husband, Asif Ali Zardari, who now leaders her party, and other party politicians.
"WHAT DIFFERENCE?"
Both the government and lawyers have vowed that the rally will be peaceful.
But nuclear-armed Pakistan has endured a wave of militant attacks and, while the lawyers would not appear to be an obvious target, violence can never be ruled out. A blast at a lawyers' protest killed 16 people last year.
On Wednesday, the convoy of about 150 vehicles travelled through sun-baked Punjab province, with protest leaders stopping to greet lawyers and political activists along the way.
Thousands of people watched along the route as the strung-out procession of banner-bedecked buses and cars passed. Ordinary people said they supported an independent judiciary but some said they were more worried about inflation.
"If the judges are restored it would give hope for an independent judiciary but it won't make any difference to the daily lives of the poor," said Shakil Ahmed, a cook at a food stall in the town of Sahiwal. "What will the judges do for us?"
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, whose party is the second biggest in the coalition, is due to address the rally in Lahore on Thursday. He says Bhutto's party has been dragging its feet over restoring the judges.
Zardari, who has led Bhutto's party since her assassination in December, says he wants the judges restored through constitutional changes, but those might take months to introduce.
Sharif and the lawyers' movement want the judges restored immediately through a parliamentary resolution.
The uneasy coalition partners are also divided on how to handle Musharraf. Zardari says he does not recognise Musharraf as a constitutional president and would reduce him to a figurehead under the proposed constitutional changes.
Sharif, who then army chief Musharraf ousted in 1999, wants Musharraf impeached and tried for treason. (Additional reporting by Kamran Haider; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Alex Richardson)
