Pakistan's Lawyers On the Front Lines

Court Boycotts, Protest Marches Underscore Anger Over Musharraf's Emergency Rule, Firing of Judges

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- They inhabit a world of shabby, obscure respectability, meeting clients in mazes of open-air cubicles with old typewriters and frayed files, conferring in narrow alleys around crumbling courthouses and appearing in dim, chairless chambers whose hand-scrawled schedules are tacked to the door frames outside.

But for two weeks, the black-suited lawyers of Pakistan have been at the forefront of the campaign against President Pervez Musharraf, boycotting courts across the country, protesting the emergency rule he imposed on Nov. 3. The strike has delayed thousands of bail hearings, lawsuits and trials.

Each morning, hundreds of lawyers, who call one another "barrister" and "advocate" in the British style and normally confine themselves to the obscure realms of the law, gather at bar association offices in major cities. On signal, they emerge and stride briskly around each court district wearing their black business suits, shouting anti-government slogans as squads of riot police stand guard. Sometimes there are shoving matches, blows and arrests, creating the pointed spectacle of justice under siege.

"How can you walk into a courtroom and address a judge as 'My lord' if he has taken an oath to a dictator?" demanded Asad Abbasi, a bar association leader in Islamabad who leads daily marches around the district court but sleeps in a different house each night, fearing arrest. "Musharraf's actions are illegal, and he is destroying the rule of law."

The clash between Musharraf and the judiciary is at the heart of Pakistan's political crisis. Many analysts say he imposed the emergency largely to prevent the Supreme Court from ruling in favor of opposition petitions challenging the validity of his Oct. 6 election to a new term by compliant national and provincial legislatures.

In recent days, much international attention has focused on the drama surrounding Musharraf's charismatic political rival, former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who has attempted to orchestrate mass street protests and denounced Musharraf daily despite being under house arrest, which was lifted Friday.

But on many levels, Musharraf's more important adversary is Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the twice-deposed chief justice of the Supreme Court. After a battle of legal rulings and public protests that erupted when Musharraf first removed Chaudhry in March, the outspoken judge is now also under house arrest in the capital, enshrined as a democratic hero while Musharraf struggles to remain in power.

Now that Chaudhry and other justices likely to rule against Musharraf have been replaced, the court is likely to validate his election. A decision is due within days, and the president said at a news conference Tuesday that "the moment" he receives a positive ruling, he will retire from the army and take oath as a civilian president.

Meanwhile, the country's legal community remains emboldened by its spring debut in street politics. While many Pakistanis mistrust Bhutto and the country's political elites, they respect the judicial system and have been horrified by the pressure it is facing.

Judges have been deposed, arrested and required to sign loyalty oaths while the constitution is suspended. Hundreds of lawyers have been detained during demonstrations this month and some given jail terms under emergency laws. A small group of senior lawyers, mostly activists in Bhutto's party who filed the legal challenges to Musharraf's election, are being held in prison.

Pakistan has between 80,000 and 90,000 lawyers, an elite class in a country of high illiteracy and poverty. Protest leaders say 90 percent of them have joined the cause. Bar associations all over the country are boycotting proceedings at superior courts until further notice, and temporarily shut down district courts until early last week.

"The political parties have their own interests, but the legal fraternity is united," said Sultan Mahmoud, president of the district bar association in the city of Rawalpindi. More than 100 of its 2,000 members are in custody under emergency laws. "We struggled against Musharraf in March and we succeeded," he said. "Now we are struggling again, and our bottom line is that military rule must end."