Immediately after taking office last month, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered the release of the 60 judges who had been detained by President Pervez Musharraf since November. This was a triumph for the rule of law in Pakistan, and above all a triumph for the brave Pakistani lawyers who took to the streets to protest Musharraf’s imposition of a state of emergency last fall.
The lawyers marched, sang, danced and exchanged their briefcases for signs and, occasionally, eggs and stones. As one Pakistani blogger wrote: “They danced in black coats and they danced in black ties. Their black coats their Kalashnikovs and their black ties their bullets.” In a world of color revolutions, Pakistan’s was clothed in the sober hues of the law.
In November, Musharraf effectively declared war on both the bar and the judiciary, dismissing all judges who refused to recognize his declaration of a state of emergency, purportedly aimed at protecting the nation from terrorists. The seven-member Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikar Mohammad Chaudhry, countered by issuing an order barring the government from proclaiming emergency rule.
Musharraf dissolved the Supreme Court and the four High Courts, put Chaudhry and his entire family under house arrest, sealed the Supreme Court premises under army guard and proceeded to arrest and detain all judges who refused to swear allegiance to the Provisional Constitutional Order upholding the state of emergency. The result was the detention of most of the senior judiciary, as well as bar association presidents across the country and leading lawyers and human rights activists seeking to defend judicial independence.
In the ensuing protests, lawyers were routinely beaten, gassed, brutalized and humiliated. They stood with and for their judges, making it virtually impossible for judges willing to take Musharraf’s oath of allegiance to operate. The lawyer’s movement, it seems, drove a historic wedge between the judiciary and the executive.
Yet in Pakistan, the US and other countries, where lawyers have helped to lead fights for human rights and the rule of law, lofty ideals cloak an equally important set of interests.
The Pakistani lawyers were safeguarding their livelihoods as much as their principles. Lawyers cannot practice without judges to hear their cases.
And clients will not bring those cases unless they believe that the judges are independent enough to decide cases on their merits, rather than on the basis of bribes or political considerations.
These interests also help explain why Kenya’s lawyers were at the forefront of protests against the corruption of Kenyan President Daniel Arap Moi’s regime in the early 1990s, but much less visible in the eruption of tribal violence this past year.
Corruption corrodes the possibility of making a living through the law, which becomes a preserve of the rich. By contrast, in crises fueled by ethnic conflict, lawyers’ interests are not so clear.
Noting the convergence between ideals and interests does not in any way demean the Pakistani lawyers’ courage and the importance of their protests. America’s founders, for instance, fully understood that the two must go hand in hand. Their design for constitutional democracy ensured, in James Madison’s words, that ambition would counter ambition and “the interests of the man” would be “connected to the constitutional rights of the place.”
The best foundation for the rule of law is to build an island of legality wherever it is most needed to advance legitimate government goals — to stop corruption, to protect the environment, to clean up the financial system, or to enforce contracts with foreign investors.
Within these limited areas, independent judges and the lawyers who can argue before them have a home.
As these islands begin to form an archipelago, a legal class emerges, supported by the clients who need them.
And on the day that a judge finally crosses a political line, speaking constitutional truth to usurped power, the government’s refusal to comply threatens the interests and ideals of an articulate and motivated segment of society.
The coming weeks will reveal whether Pakistan’s new government has the courage and integrity not only to release the fired judges, but to restore them to the bench and perhaps to face their scrutiny down the road.
If it does, Pakistan’s lawyers will be able to return to the courtrooms, and Pakistani citizens will have another chance to make democracy work.
If they succeed, perhaps they should add a black border around the proud Islamic green of their flag — the black not of mourning, but of justice.
Anne-Marie Slaughter, the dean of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, is on sabbatical in Shanghai.Copyright: Project Syndicate
Concerns that the US might abandon Taiwan are often overstated. While US President Donald Trump’s handling of Ukraine raised unease in Taiwan, it is crucial to recognize that Taiwan is not Ukraine. Under Trump, the US views Ukraine largely as a European problem, whereas the Indo-Pacific region remains its primary geopolitical focus. Taipei holds immense strategic value for Washington and is unlikely to be treated as a bargaining chip in US-China relations. Trump’s vision of “making America great again” would be directly undermined by any move to abandon Taiwan. Despite the rhetoric of “America First,” the Trump administration understands the necessity of
In an article published on this page on Tuesday, Kaohsiung-based journalist Julien Oeuillet wrote that “legions of people worldwide would care if a disaster occurred in South Korea or Japan, but the same people would not bat an eyelid if Taiwan disappeared.” That is quite a statement. We are constantly reading about the importance of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC), hailed in Taiwan as the nation’s “silicon shield” protecting it from hostile foreign forces such as the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and so crucial to the global supply chain for semiconductors that its loss would cost the global economy US$1
US President Donald Trump’s challenge to domestic American economic-political priorities, and abroad to the global balance of power, are not a threat to the security of Taiwan. Trump’s success can go far to contain the real threat — the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) surge to hegemony — while offering expanded defensive opportunities for Taiwan. In a stunning affirmation of the CCP policy of “forceful reunification,” an obscene euphemism for the invasion of Taiwan and the destruction of its democracy, on March 13, 2024, the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) used Chinese social media platforms to show the first-time linkage of three new
Sasha B. Chhabra’s column (“Michelle Yeoh should no longer be welcome,” March 26, page 8) lamented an Instagram post by renowned actress Michelle Yeoh (楊紫瓊) about her recent visit to “Taipei, China.” It is Chhabra’s opinion that, in response to parroting Beijing’s propaganda about the status of Taiwan, Yeoh should be banned from entering this nation and her films cut off from funding by government-backed agencies, as well as disqualified from competing in the Golden Horse Awards. She and other celebrities, he wrote, must be made to understand “that there are consequences for their actions if they become political pawns of