EVER SINCE the passage of the 26th Amendment to the Constitution of Pakistan, influential lawyers, one after the other, have come out to threaten a widespread lawyers’ movement. Notable lawyers leading the charge against the 26th Amendment have often been quoted as threatening a protest movement that would put the one led against Gen Pervez Musharraf to shame. Yet, as the days have gone by since the amendment’s passage, the realisation has set in — within the lawyers’ community in particular and the public in general — that the much sought-after ‘lawyers movement’ may never really see the light of day.

There is no denying the fact that the charge against the dictatorship of Gen Musharraf was led from the front by Pakistan’s legal community. Hundreds and thousands of lawyers continued to protest day in and day out — often at the risk of being mercilessly beaten by the law enforcement agencies — with the single aim of ensuring the ‘rule of law’ and ‘judicial independence’ in the country. These protests did eventually come to fruition when the judges who had been deposed by Gen Musharraf, including a former chief justice, were restored to their rightful position, which led the way to the eventual ouster of the dictator.

The success of this ‘lawyers’ movement’ is often seen as the golden period of unity of the legal community in this country. It was a time when the lawyers’ community had realised the progressive........

© Dawn