The Lawyers' Movement (), also known as the Movement for the Restoration of Judiciary or the Black Coat Protests, was the popular mass protest movement initiated by the lawyers of Pakistan in response to the former president and army chief Pervez Musharraf's actions of 9 March 2007 when he unconstitutionally suspended Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as the chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court. Following the suspension of the chief justice, the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) declared the judge's removal as an "assault on the independence of judiciary" and was backed by several political parties.
History
Suspension of Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry
In the first few months of 2007, several conflicts had already raged between chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and the Pakistani government. Chaudhry had worked hard to clear a backlog of cases at the Supreme Court and had "[taken] on politically controversial issues", particularly with regard to the Pakistan Steel Mills corruption case where the chief justice ruled against the sale of the state-owned steel mills at a "throw-away price". Issues pertaining to the privatisation of the state-owned steel mills upset Shaukat Aziz, who served as the prime minister under the Musharraf administration.
What irked president Pervez Musharraf however was the controversial Missing Persons case that found Pakistan's intelligence agencies (including the FIA and the ISI) to be complicit in the forced disappearances of up to 400 people (including terror suspects and human rights activists) without due process since 2001. Under Chaudhry's leadership, the courts had increasingly started "exercising independence from the government" when it ordered the security agencies to produce the missing people in court.
When the Musharraf administration asked the judge to quit, Chaudhry refused to go. On 9 March 2007, Musharraf had no other choice but to suspend Chaudhry from his post for alleged and unspecified charges of misconduct and misuse of authority. The sacking of the head of the judiciary sparked bloody protests throughout Pakistan and "edged the country towards a constitutional crisis". The civil unrest grew with regards to the validity of the allegations as well as doubts as to whether Musharraf had the power to suspend the chief justice. It was on these grounds that Chaudhry waged a legal battle in the Supreme Court seeking his reinstatement. He called his suspension a "thinly veiled assault on the independence of judiciary in Pakistan".
Adliya Bachao Tehreek Chaudhry's suspension was met with protests from Pakistan's legal community. Senior judges and lawyers initiated the Adliya Bachao Tehreek (; Save the Judiciary Movement) with the aim of getting Chaudhry reinstated and maintain the independence of the judiciary. The movement was led by SCBA presidents Munir A. Malik, Aitzaz Ahsan, and Ali Ahmad Kurd along with others leading lawyers. The Adliya Bachao Tehreek is seen as a precursor to the eventual Lawyer's Movement.
Renowned politician and lawyer Aitzaz Ahsan was pivotal in bringing together an "influential group of constitutional lawyers who had long opposed the various periods of military rule in Pakistan’s short history". He orchestrated a "campaign of motorcades" to take the chief justice to various bar associations around the country. Wherever the cavalcade passed, the chief justice was welcomed by people tossing rose petals at his car and chanting "Go Musharraf Go!"
Police brutality in Sahiwal On 5 May 2007, a rally was organised in support of the chief justice in Sahiwal. The deposed chief justice was to make an appearance at a bar association in Sahiwal on his way to Multan. Upon his arrival, the police (allegedly acting under orders from the Musharraf regime) baton-charged and attacked the otherwise peaceful "torch-bearing" demonstrators. There were reports that the police threw petrol bombs at the rally burning at least 13 lawyers; five suffered from major burns. Around 50 lawyers were injured in the mayhem. The New York Times later interviewed Ishtiaq Ahmed, a lawyer who shared an eyewitness account of the incident, saying that Sahiwal was where the lawyers "suffered more than any place".
On 9 May 2007, the general house of the Lahore High Court Bar Association (LHCBA) demanded the Punjab and Sindh governments to step down immediately for patronising state terrorism. The bar also called for the removal of Sahiwal DPO Javed Shah. The LHC later upheld the sentences against other police officers involved in the attacks on 24 July 2013.
Black Saturday riots in Karachi
As the movement started gaining support from political parties in the opposition, the various pro-government parties, in particular Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) and Pakistan Muslim League (Q) (PML-Q), allied themselves with Musharraf and began organising protest demonstrations of their own against the "politicisation of the issue of [the justice's suspension]". On 12 May 2007, two such rival demonstrations in Karachi came to a violent end when ensuing clashes left more than 40 people killed with several hundred injured and arrested.
On the chief justice's arrival in Karachi to address the Sindh High Court Bar Association at its 50th anniversary, gunfights and clashes erupted across the provincial capital as Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and Awami National Party (ANP) activists who supported the judge and the pro-government MQM activists took to the streets against each other. During the riots that ensued, media offices of the Business Recorder Group and Aaj TV were also attacked. There were also reports that the activists of the pro-government MQM had torched a lawyers' office resulting in the deaths of about seven lawyers burnt alive in the fire. Following the attacks on media offices, the news media strengthened in their resolve to support the chief justice's reinstatement.
Political opponents in the parliament blamed one another for the May 12 mayhem. Several opposition politicians placed the responsibility of the attacks on pro-government parties like the MQM, while MQM held the opposition parties responsible for the situation in Karachi. An editorial in the Daily Times said, "the possibility of any compromise to correct [Musharraf's] original mistake [of removing the chief justice] has vanished now ... the ante has been upped by the government."
Temporary reinstatement Four months into the movement, Musharraf caved under the "pressure of incessant nonviolent civil resistance" and reinstated Chaudhry as the chief justice on 20 July 2007. The Supreme Court cleared Chaudhry of all charges when restoring him to his earlier position. Nevertheless, the lawyers still continued their movement against Musharraf, declaring his actions and rule "illegal".
The legal community put pressure on Chaudhry to take up several controversial cases against the Musharraf regime – one such case challenged the army chief's eligibility as a candidate in the upcoming presidential elections on 6 October 2007.
The 2007 Constitutional Battle Against the NRO On October 6, 2007, right when the Lawyers' Movement was hitting its peak, a Lahore-based lawyer named Nasrullah Khan Babar made a massive move against the government. He stepped into the Lahore High Court to file a lawsuit directly challenging President Pervez Musharraf’s brand new National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) the infamous deal that dropped corruption charges for powerful politicians. Babar openly called the NRO a bad-faith move, arguing that under Article 25 of the Constitution, everyone has to be treated equally under the law. He told the court it was completely unfair to create a special shield for corrupt officials while holding regular people accountable. He even went as far as calling the ordinance a "reward for thieves who plundered the country's wealth" just to keep Musharraf in power. His high court challenge became a major part of the legal rebellion that kept pushing against the military regime, setting the stage for the Supreme Court to eventually trash the NRO as unconstitutional a couple of years later.
Judiciary dismissed again under emergency rule
On 3 November 2007, the reelected president Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency in Pakistan and imposed a provisional constitutional order (PCO). Under the PCO, Musharraf dismissed the chief justice again and removed about sixty other judges. Several opposition politicians and lawyers called the removal of these judges as "illegal and unconstitutional".
In shuffling the functions of the judiciary, several judges to asked to take oath under the 2007 PCO arrangements. The lawyers, in turn, refused to take oath under the PCO and reacted to the dismissals and the emergency rule by boycotting the courts and taking part in protests and hunger strikes. People from outside the legal community also took part in these protests further motivated by political agendas. The international pressure following the nationwide protest forced Musharraf to end emergency rule in December 2007. In ending the emergency rule, Musharraf still did not reinstate Chaudhry and the other judges who had refused to take oath under the PCO arrangements. These judges had persistently protested and did so until Musharraf resigned in August 2008.
List of prominent judges removed Chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry Justice Rana Bhagwandas Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday Justice Javaid Iqbal Justice Raja Muhammad Fayyaz Ahmad Justice Mian Shakirullah Jan Justice Chaudhry Ijaz Ahmed Justice Khawaja Muhammad Sharif Justice Mahmood Akhtar Shahid Siddiqui Justice Ghulam Rabbani Justice Sardar Muhammad Raza
Movement activists put under house arrest
On 4 November 2007, prominent leaders of the movement were kept under house arrest including former chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, Aitzaz Ahsan and Munir A. Malik. Such were the restrictions imposed on the judges under arrest that Malik later developed serious health problems due to his confinement when his kidneys shut down and his liver malfunctioned.
Amongst the various lawyers, opposition politicians and human rights activists put under house arrest was the UN special rapporteur Asma Jahangir. She was placed under house arrest on 5 November 2007. An email from Jahangir's house arrest was published in The Independent, in which she regretted that Musharraf had "lost his marbles".
Nationwide crackdown on lawyers On 5 November 2007, police raided the Lahore High Court Bar Association. They baton-charged and threw tear gas into the premises and arrested over 800 lawyers. The Lahore High Court condemned the attack saying that never had it occurred in the history of Pakistan that armoured police vehicles entered a court's premises to attack protesting lawyers who had sought refuge within the court building. The protesting lawyers had earlier showered rose petals in front of the locked courtrooms of the judges who refused to take the oath under the PCO.
At the Sindh High Court (SHC) in Karachi, several protesting lawyers were arrested at the court premises. When removed judges tried to enter the court premises, they were stopped by police outside the gates. Over 45 protesting lawyers were picked up from the SHC premises including former FSC judge Shafi Mohammadi, relieved SHC chief justice Sabihuddin Ahmed's son Salahuddin Ahmed, justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali's son Najeeb Jamali, senior lawyer Fakhruddin G. Ebrahim's son Zahid Ebrahim and the son in law of Khawaja Muhammad Sharif, Azhar Hameed.
2008 general elections and the Bhurban Accord