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Pakistan lawyers firm on march

LAHORE: As the day of the “long march” to Islamabad draws closer, fuel stations in this city have put up notices refusing to sell more than 25 litres of petrol to customers, apparently on the instructions of the government, which is doing all it can to prevent the protest for the restoration of the deposed chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhary.

On the Grand Trunk road, the proposed route of the “long march,” which is actually planned as a motorcade, the paramilitary Rangers have already been deployed and there are reports the road may be completely sealed by Sunday, the day the rallyists propose to leave from here in a long motorcade.

Bus owners say they have been asked not to hire out their vehicles, and caterers, hotels and restaurants have been asked not to accept bulk food orders.

But the lawyers who called this march, and the political parties who have thrown their weight behind it, including the main opposition Pakistan Muslim League (N), have pledged to reach the capital for a planned indefinite dharna until the government restores Mr. Chaudhary.

“We have a Plan A, a Plan B, a Plan C to reach Islamabad. [The government] may use any means to stop us, they may hit us with lathis or they may arrest some of us, but no force can deter us from this long march,” said lawyer Munir Ahmed Chauhan, as he stood with colleagues on the grounds of the sprawling Lahore High Court, whose historic red-brick buildings have been a main centre of the protests in the two-year battle to restore Mr. Chaudhary.

“Some people think, call this an agitation,” said Mr. Chauhan. “We are not agitators. This is a movement for the restoration of the rule of law in this country, and Mr. Chaudhary is the symbol of that for his defiance of the military ruler [Pervez] Musharraf.”

The decision by the PML(N) to join in the “long march” following the Supreme Court order disqualifying its leaders Nawaz Sharif and his brother Shahbaz from elected office, and the subsequent dismissal of the PML(N) government, has strengthened the lawyers’ cause.

But as the Pakistan Army, the U.S. and the UK stepped in to prevent the Sharif-Zardari rivalry from spilling out violently on the streets, there are indications that the two sides could arrive at a compromise, including a settlement on the restoration of Mr. Chaudhary.

Among the solutions being said to be considered is a symbolic or “soft” restoration of Mr. Chaudhary, in which he steps down soon after being reinstated as the chief justice, possibly under a plan that all judges who took oath under Gen. Musharraf’s first “provisional constitutional order” in 2000 and under the second in 2007, should resign.

Another is said to be a proposal to install him as the chief justice of a proposed “constitutional court,” that will function parallel to the Supreme Court.

But Aitzaz Ahsan, the most prominent leader of the pro-judiciary protest, said nothing less than the “unconditional restoration” of Mr. Chaudhary would be acceptable to the lawyers.

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