The Agrinautica

"ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Scores of paramilitary troops blocked access to the Supreme Court and parliament. Streets in the capital appeared largely calm, with only a handful of demonstrations. But one, attended by 40 people at the Marriott Hotel, was broken up by baton-wielding police.
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Around 200 police with assault rifles and sticks* stormed the rights commission's office in the eastern city of Lahore, breaking up a meeting and arresting about 50 members, said Mehbood Ahmed Khan, legal officer for the activists.
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"Many people in Pakistan believe that it has nothing to do with stopping terrorism, and it has everything to do with stopping a court verdict that was coming against him," [former Prime Minister Bhutto Benazir] told the weekend edition of ABC News' "Good Morning America." - Associated Press, 33 minutes ago.

   Phone service is back in the capital but independant media is still offline. Hundreds of arrests have been made in the last 24 hours of specific political targets of Musharraf's, such as the presidents of the bar associations, as well as prominant members of political parties other than Musharraf's.


   I think its rather significant that he needs to go all nutso like this to stop the Court from making a decision. If he was in a strong political position he could surely just ignore the Court (lots of countries do that all the time), and/or the Court would avoid putting itself in such an awkward position by not actually disqualifying him (indeed, it would be shockingly saucy if they actually DID DQ him). So he must be in an extremely tenuous political situation in order to be resorting to this.
   Additionally, he is an idiot. (A) Unless I'm very mistaken, the only reason he could potentially be disqualified from the recent election is because the constitution forbids him from being Army Chief of Staff and President concurrently -- it seems like he could very very easily drop the Chief of Staff title, while even retaining its de facto duties and responsibilities. (B) There's no way this "state of emergency" suspension of the Constitution is going to help his political position.
   I think Musharraf is in his political death throws.

And I thought the metal detectors at the Woodland Courthouse were a hassle!
(And apparently the stahlhelm didn't go out of style in 1945 for everyone)

   Despite being an undemocratic tyrant, I had rather thought of Pervez Musharref as a more or less enlightened despot, as far as despots go. It was kind of silly how upon coming to power he had the previously elected president arrested for attempted murder -- for not giving Musharref's plane permission to land so that Musharref could come over and oust him. But now, he's gone too far. He's had the Chief Justice of Pakistan arrested and stripped of power.


   The charges against Chief Justice Chaudhry seem to consist of things like: "requiring more protocol than he deserved. He required senior officials to receive him at airports and was also using helicopters and planes to go to private functions;" "asking for more perks than he was eligible for;" "was entitled to use a 1700cc car, but he used a 3000cc mercedes" (! lol that jerk!) and ... and having the liscense plate "RAZIA-1" (seriously wtf! I think Musharref should take that up with their DMV if it really bothers him).

   In actuality, as far as I can tell, Chaudhry is probably being persecuted for being too zealous in clamping down on corruption. An article by Aaj TV notes "Many analysts say Musharraf’s move to suspend the country’s Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry in March might be motivated by a desire to have a more pliable man at the head of judiciary in case of a constitutional challenge to his plans [to try to run again for President and remain chief of the military]"


   Anyway, the Chief Justice was unexpectedly detained upon being summoned to Musharref's office on March 9th 2007, and was held incommunicado for some time thereafter while Musharref's office declared that the Chief Justice had been "suspended" and the next second most senior Supreme Court Justice after him would be acting Chief Justice.


   The Pakistani Constitution of course does NOT allow for him to be removed from office in this manner. It does, however, allow the Court on its own to initiate misconduct investigations which can result in dismissal and this procedure has been initiated (The Supreme Judicial Council which is holding the hearings appears to consist of a number of justices / judges who either have corruption charges against themselves, or opposed Chaudhry's appointment from the start, and/or otherwise seems clearly messed with). In the mean time, Musharref's office declared him "suspended," rather than the clearly impermissable dismissal. I think any reasonable person can easily imagine that the Constitution does not mention suspension because it assumed that would be impermissable.


   Not only does this "suspended but not removed" seem eerily similar to the "we just want to chat, not remove you" justification ASUCD Senators like to give for calling people up for removal hearings, Chief Justice Chaudhry additionally had to fight to keep his removal hearing open to the public. Its a sad day when military despots are behaving as poorly as ASUCD.

   Anyway, lawyers across Pakistan have been boycotting judicial procedures in protest of this. More recently, with Chaudhry free from house arrest and able to travel about, there have been huge rallies in support of him (and today a riot caused by Musharref's supporters in opposition to a pro-Chaudhry rally). On some occasions, these riots have significantly disrupted traffic in and around the capitol (in particular I noticed that on April 13th, "Constitutional Avenue had to be closed," there's an ironic pun).

   And finally, a case has been filed with the Supreme Court against President Musharraf, the details of which I've been unable to acertain. Musharraf however has stated that he is not answerable to the Court. I would argue that IF the President is not answerable to the Court, THEN the Court is certainly not answerable to arbitrary suspension by him!


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