Supporters hold rally for suspended Pakistani judge
26 May 2007 19:53:27 GMT Source: Reuters
(Updates with comment from judge) By Augustine Anthony ISLAMABAD, May 26 (Reuters) - About 3,000 supporters of Pakistan's suspended chief justice rallied in Islamabad on Saturday as he warned of the danger of power being concentrated in the hands of an individual. Government attempts to remove Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry over unspecified accusations of misconduct, levelled on March 9, have sparked a broad campaign against President Pervez Musharraf and demands for the restoration of full democracy. The campaign by lawyers and the opposition is the most serious challenge to the authority of the president, who is also army chief, since he seized power in 1999. Chaudhry spoke at a seminar on the separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary, two weeks after his attempt to meet supporters in Karachi sparked the worst political street violence in Pakistan in years. About 40 people were killed in two days of clashes between pro-government activists trying to prevent him from holding a rally in Karachi and opposition supporters. There was no trouble in Islamabad on Saturday as Chaudhry made his way from his home to the Supreme Court for the seminar. Crowds of lawyers and opposition supporters mobbed his car, cheering and chanting anti-Musharraf slogans as Chaudhry inched his way along the two-km (one-mile) route, which took him more than two hours to travel. Police kept a low profile. Chaudhry denies wrongdoing and has refused to resign but he has avoided overt political comment and has not given media interviews since the crisis blew up. He told hundreds of lawyers in the Supreme Court he would not comment on the government's accusations against him. He also asked the lawyers, who had been chanting "Go, Musharraf, Go!" not to shout slogans. He said the Pakistani people had been drawn to the campaign for judicial independence and their will could not be suppressed. "The determination of the people cannot be resisted for long. The cause is noble," he said. "DANGEROUS" The separation of powers was a bulwark against the centralisation of power in one person or institution, he said. "That is dangerous," he said. He did not refer to Musharraf by name. Opposition activists watched the seminar on a big screen set up on the street outside the court. The Supreme Court suspended a judicial panel's inquiry into the accusations against Chaudhry on May 7, saying a full bench of the court should hear his petition challenging the panel's right to hear the accusations. The bench began hearing Chaudhry's petition on May 15. Musharraf has criticised lawyers for politicising the issue, and has said the courts must be allowed to rule on the case. Musharraf aims to be re-elected by the present national and provincial assemblies in September or October, about a month before they are due to be dissolved for a general election. There are several reasons why the government may have wanted to get rid of Chaudhry but most analysts say Musharraf saw the judge as someone he could not rely on if there were constitutional challenges to either his re-election by sitting assemblies or the retention of his army role. Musharraf has ruled out declaring a state of emergency as a way out of the crisis and said the elections will be held on time.
