Pakistan’s reinstated top judge Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry yesterday called on lawyers to wipe out corruption in the judiciary on his first day in court for 16 months.
Chaudhry, greeted with a standing ovation, was restored by the government on Sunday in a dramatic U-turn that has boosted hopes of an end to a debilitating crisis in the nuclear-armed nation.
Millions of Pakistanis hope his return, after former Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf sacked him in 2007, will cleanse the judiciary, but experts warn that he faces huge challenges to bring about legislative and institutional reform.
PHOTO: AFP
“It is a matter of great satisfaction and a day of thanksgiving to Allah the almighty that after a long period the original court has been restored,” Chaudhry told a courtroom packed with lawyers who rose to applaud his arrival.
“There is rampant corruption in this institution [judiciary]. This cannot be eradicated without the help of lawyers. You people should come forward to point out such cases,” he said.
“I will request all of you, being officers of this court, to put your house in order first,” Chaudhry said.
His vehicle was showered with rose petals after swinging into the supreme court compound under heavy police escort as lawyers waved Pakistani flags and welcome banners, and activists released colored balloons into the sky.
Chaudhry and 60 other top judges were sacked by Musharraf, who feared the supreme court would disqualify him from contesting a presidential election while remaining head of the military.
The announcement on March 16 that the government would reinstate the deposed chief justice was calculated to end a major crisis between opposition leader Nawaz Sharif and the deeply unpopular President Asif Ali Zardari.
The decision was made under intense Western pressure. In the wake of the move, Sharif scrapped a mass protest march on the capital, Islamabad.
Political leaders have since called for reconciliation but no concrete agreements have been announced and Sharif, the most popular politician in the country, says Chaudhry’s restoration should be followed by further reforms.
A date is still pending for the supreme court to hear a government appeal looking to overturn a Feb. 25 ruling that disqualified Sharif and his brother Shahbaz from contesting elections.
Neither has a deal been reached on ending Zardari’s direct rule in Pakistan’s most powerful province of Punjab after the court decision forced Shahbaz Sharif to leave his post as chief minister.
Chaudhry, who shies away from the media and refuses to make political statements, has a reputation as an upstanding, independent-minded judge who clashed frequently with the former Musharraf regime.
Sworn in on June 30, 2005, one of his most famous moves was to take up the cases of missing people allegedly held by Pakistani security forces or handed over to the US on terror charges.
A small group of relatives of the missing held banners outside court yesterday saying “release immediately our valuable citizens and loved ones.”
Chaudhry ordered the security services to produce several of the missing in court before he was sacked by Musharraf.
Meanwhile, a bomber blew himself up at a police station housing terrorism intelligence offices, killing himself and one officer in Islamabad.
The blast occurred late on Monday on Pakistan’s national day.
Islamist militants are blamed for near-daily attacks in the increasingly unstable country, though little information on Monday’s bomber was available.
Islamabad is one of the safer cities in Pakistan, but it has not escaped violence, including last September’s deadly suicide truck bombing at the Marriott Hotel that killed more than 50 people.
The man detonated explosives at the gate of the police station in the center of the capital, Interior Ministry secretary Kamal Shah said. He said an officer who was apparently challenging the bomber died in the blast.
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