Adil Najam
In what is clearly a historic development, the Prime Minister of Pakistan Syed Yousuf Raza Gillani addressed the nation to announce the reinstatement of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. The address, which was supposed to be at 2AM Pakistan Time, was late by many hours but the subtext was true to the rumors that had been circulating in Pakistan all day:
Here is the full text of the Prime Minister’s speech:
My dear countrymen Assalam-o-Alaikum,
I am speaking to you at a time when our country is standing at a critical moment. No country can make progress without political tolerance and the PPP and lawyers have been together in struggle for upholding democracy in Pakistan. Shaheed Mohtrama Benazir Bhutto actively participated in the struggle of restoration of judiciary was launched by lawyers. Benazir Bhutto wanted free judiciary and supremacy of the constitution.
The lawyers’ movement for restoring of judges was their democratic right. The PPP was shoulder to shoulder with the lawyers in the cause for the independent judiciary.
The slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto also wanted to reinstate the deposed chief justice.
I have taken all his coalition partners and the President into confidence about the reinstatement of the deposed chief justice once the current chief justice retires on March 21.
The deposed chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry will assume charges on March 21.
Benazir Bhutto wanted free judiciary and supremacy of the constitution.
I order all the provincial government to abolish Section 144 at once.
After consultations with all political forces of the country and President Asif Ali Zardari, we have decided to restore all deposed judges including Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as Chief Justice of Pakistan who will assume charge on March 21. The current Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar retires on March 21. I urge all the political forces and lawyers to work for the solidarity and welfare of the country.
Pakistan Paindabad.
Just over two years after he was first unceremoniously removed by Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf, and having once been restored by the Supreme Court, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has now been ‘restored’ yet again as the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan. The road from there has been tumultuous. The movement that gathered around him was always bigger than the CJ and it was bigger than those around him. The vindication today is not simply of Chief Justice Chaudhry, it is a vindication of Pakistan’s civil society.
ATP has covered the ups and down of this story. For some reason one has a sense that this story is not over yet. We have celebrated a reinstatement once before too. And from the PM’s speech it is not clear at all what the terms of the decision really are. But right now one wishes simply to bask in the joyousness of the moment, in the vindication of justice, in the goodness of the news. There is much analysis that is needed, but let us leave that for just a little later.
“In the End, WE WILL REMEMBER not the WORDS of our enemies, but the silence of our FRIENDS”
Dr. Martin Luther King
NOW real JUSTICE WILL BE AVAILABLE for PEOPLE OF PAKISTAN- This is JOINT EFFORT OF LAWYERS AND SOME DEDICATED POLITICAL PARTIES.
SALUTE TO LAYWERS- HATS OFF
LONG LIVE PAKISTAN
LONG LIVE INDEPENDENT JUDICIARY
What next?
Today is a day Pakistan and Pakistanis won BIG time!
Although Prime Minister Gilani’s statement will be repeated, dissected and analyzed word by word over the next few days, the winners and the losers will be discussed; the future shape of the power structure that is likely to emerge will be predicted by the media pundits, one fact remains that once the dust settles down, the day’s momentous events will be remembered long after the names of individuals will have faded from memory.
Today’s events are important because they demonstrated the extent of the people’s power. In a country which has lately been in the news for all the wrong reasons; terrorist strikes, honor killings, extremism and what not, a momentous change was accomplished not by guns or bombs but by people’s belief that they count as individuals; that a democratic form of protest is the only way to bring change; that the institutions matter; that specifically the independence of judiciary is a cause worth fighting for.
While cynics have every reason to doubt the motives of many individuals, e.g. Mr. Sharif’s support of the lawyers’ movement is already being viewed as a politically motivated, the fact remains that the lawyers’ movement remained faithful to its original goal till the end.
I think that this lawyers’ movement and its subsequent victory today moved Pakistan even so infinitesimally closer to the vision of one particular lawyer whose picture hung behind the Prime Minister today when he delivered his speech. Today is the day that I think would have made Mr. Jinnah proud.
Congratulations are in order not only to the lawyers and the marchers but also to all others (including the moderators, readers and the well wishers of Pakistianiat) who also supported the movement with sympathy and words of encouragement.
Judges and President will still come and go; but today’s victory made it so much harder for a future president to summon an inconveniently independent minded Chief Justice to his office and summarily dismiss him on the spot.
Congratulations all Pakistanis; this is how a nation is built: one brick at a time.
We will see the underlying repercussions of this twist soon enough. But for the moment congrats everyone. Let’s hope and pray that it gets better from here on.
Pakistan Zindabad
Congratulations. I am so glad to have lived to see this happen.
Here is the full text of the PM’s speech:
Just heard that Nawaz Sharif is “calling off the Long March.”
But who is he to do so. It is the lawyers march, not his. I hope the lawyers will continue the March as a celebration of their victory and also as a show that this is their victory and not highjacked by NS.
Pakistan Zindabad. Best news heard after a long long while.