Oh Musharraf

[aggienaut]

" ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Gen. Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan on Saturday, suspending the constitution, replacing the chief justice before a crucial Supreme Court ruling on his future as president, and cutting communications in the capital."
...
Seven of the 18 Supreme Court judges immediately condemned the emergency, which suspended the current constitution. Police blocked entry to the Supreme Court building and later took the chief justice and other judges away in a convoy, witnesses said. [I'm assuming the "other judges" are the seven who condemned the emergency]
...
A copy of the emergency order obtained by The Associated Press justified the declaration on the grounds that "some members of the judiciary are working at cross purposes with the executive" and "weakening the government's resolve" to fight terrorism." - Associated Press, 52 minutes ago.

   Lolz. God forbid the judiciary not cooperate with the executive, and if they try to enforce the constitution, lets just suspend it!


(You may recall last time I mentioned Musharraf and Pakistan he had "suspended" the Chief Justice. Anyway, since then the courts pwned Musharraf's suspension and reinstated Chief Justice Chaudhry)

Comments

[colt-4-5.livejournal.com]

As If things cant get any more tense over in that corner of the world eh?

[emosnail.livejournal.com]

Seriously. Really doesn't help Musharraf's legitimacy that he has to suspend the constitution to prevent the Supreme Court from potentially finding that he is ineligible to hold office. Especially since unless I have a really erroneous conception of the situation there (which I might), (A) it would be really hard for the Court to actually get him out of office. They could say point-blank he can't be in office and if his position was strong he could just say "they don't know whats good for the country" and ignore them or such. Thats kind of the usual military-dictator route I tihnk, or (B) the specific problem is that he insists on remaining Army Chief of Staff while concurrently President. I don't see why he can't just lose the CoS title, while retaining its de facto duties and powers?