As Pakistan elections get closer, Gen Musharraf is in trouble. Barely had he stormed the Lal Masjid, the Mujahideens and the country’s Supreme Court seems to have struck back rather unkindly on him.

The judgement by the Supreme Court against the President, who suspended the Chief Justice in March, acquitting the judge from all charges, will go down in history as the most powerful assertion of judicial independence.

Suborning the SC is a practice common in independent Pakistan. It all started in the early 50s, when the then Governor General dissolved the Constituent Assembly and created a constitutional crisis, which was legalised by the SC. Later, successive military coups were given legal sanctity under the Doctrine of Necessity.

Earlier, Musharraf was faced with the major question: whether or not to contest the presidential election? There are two important aspects to it — would he contest while continuing to be a military General; should he contest the election either through the existing assemblies or after the new National Assembly and provincial assemblies had been elected.

Apart from democratic ethics behind the idea of the new assemblies electing the President — would the judiciary allow him to contest elections with his uniform on and through the old assembly — remained an equally important question. His advisors, particularly the leaders of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (Q), were pressing him for the latter course.

The major impediment for this was Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhary. He had, in several pronouncements, taken a negative attitude towards the regime. Once, when the government sold off the state-owned Pakistan Steel Mill to a private party and there was some fishy business in the deal.

Second, he had taken a strong stand against  the security agencies, which were seen to be behind the disappearance of hundreds of citizens. Musharraf decided to remove the Chief Justice to clear the way for his election. He did it in the clumsiest of ways, like a typical autocrat.

The move provoked outrage and spontaneous protest by the legal fraternity and the public. It is worth noting that he was not the first Chief Justice to be illtreated. Soon after Musharraf took over, judges of the SC and high courts were required to take new oath of office under the Provisional Constitutional Order. Some of them were left out and not invited to take the oath, including the then Chief Justice Saeeduzzaman Siddiqi.

The judgment of the Supreme Court, dismissing all charges  against Iftikhar Chaudhary has upheld the highest tradition of judicial independence and has undone the decade-long tradition of interference in the freedom of the judiciary by political and vested interests. It is a welcome endorsement of democracy and the rule of law, which remained paralysed in Pakistan for a long time.

(The writer is a former JNU Professor, specialised in Pakistan Studies)