The most powerful man in Pakistan...
The Zardari government has caved and agreed to reinstate Iftikhar Chaudhry as chief justice. (Reuters, NYTimes) This immediately serves to largely remove the lawyers from the ant-government protests (and to some lesser degree from the anti-government movement,) but I think it also now makes Chief Justice Chaudry bulletproof.
Now that he's been brought back under pressure, I can't imagine they could remove hime again, so now the "maverick" judge has more power than ever. (The bright spot is that Chaudry has largely been law over politics.)
Musharraf originally removed Chaudry over election law, but here's one reason why the current leadership didn't want him back,
There's more domestically than that, Sharif's status, the reach of the central government into Punjab, tactics against Taleban....
(PS. Per the BBC, it's not just Chaudry, but almost all the judges politically sacked by Musharraf.)
Related: (AP) "A suspected US missile strike killed two Arabs and three other people in northwest Pakistan late Sunday...."
Now that he's been brought back under pressure, I can't imagine they could remove hime again, so now the "maverick" judge has more power than ever. (The bright spot is that Chaudry has largely been law over politics.)
Musharraf originally removed Chaudry over election law, but here's one reason why the current leadership didn't want him back,
He had asked the Musharraf government to bring intelligence officials to his court to explain the disappearances of hundreds of Pakistanis believed held without charges since the American war on terrorism began in 2001.
There's more domestically than that, Sharif's status, the reach of the central government into Punjab, tactics against Taleban....
(PS. Per the BBC, it's not just Chaudry, but almost all the judges politically sacked by Musharraf.)
Related: (AP) "A suspected US missile strike killed two Arabs and three other people in northwest Pakistan late Sunday...."
posted by mikevotes at
7:05 AM
2 Comments:
this is a major shift on the part of the pakistani government, is it not? I wonder what the back story is on this.
By
-epm, at 8:53 AM
The PM Zardari was facing those massive lawyer dominated demonstrations and he was losing the PR battle to Sharif who had aligned himself with the lawyer movement.
To my mind, this is a short term move designed to stave off immediate anti-government pressures from a fiercest ally, but it will have longer term effects.
By
mikevotes, at 10:41 AM
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