DR FAROOQ HASSAN

It is said that a picture is worth a thousand words. There is one such photo that I would send to my friend Mr Bush to look whenever leisure permits him to evaluate how his protégé is handling the affairs of Pakistan; this picture to my mind contains the entire contemporary history of Pakistan.

The TV images of the President chastising the country’s top judge have had people in shock for the past week. The people had known for some time that the present of a sham democracy was nothing more than a facade. But seeing is believing! The revulsion that this revolting photo created is really unspeakable in the hearts and minds of millions of Pakistanis. Indeed it has created the foundations of the end to the present junta’s long rule in office. General Musharraf’s suspension of Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry has thus opened a new debate on democracy, constitutionalism and of the role of military in the country.

Since this national de-robing of our true national characteristics began to unfold, storm of protests has erupted all over the country, with the legal community boycotting the courts and opposition parties gearing up for a political conference to debate the issue. Since then on the 13th, and again on the 16th and 17th March, 2007 there has been a series of pitched battles in different parts of the country between the lawyers’ community near the premises of the courts complexes and the police forces.

Read the whole essay here.

The writer is a professor of Law & International Affairs at Harvard

Dr. Farooq Hassan, D.Phil.;
BA (Juris),MA,M. LiTT (OXON);
DCL (Columbia),DIA(Harvard);
Sen.Adv.Sup.Ct. (Pakistan),
Barrister at Law (UK),Attorney at Law(US).

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