Pakistan lawyers mull street protests

Pakistani lawyers met Saturday to decide whether to mount street protests against the government after its failure to reinstate judges ousted by President Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf, a stalwart U.S. ally, imposed emergency rule and purged the Supreme Court last year to halt legal challenges of his re-election.

A new coalition made up of his opponents took office six weeks ago and promised to reinstate the justices, casting doubt on Musharraf's political survival.

But the government has missed two self-imposed deadlines to do so and appears to be unraveling over the issue - a process that could accelerate in the face of protests.

Some 60 senior leaders of the country's powerful lawyers' movement gathered at the high court in the eastern city of Lahore to consider how to step up their yearlong protests in defense of the judiciary.

They have threatened to mount a "long march" on the capital, Islamabad. But it was unclear what decision they would make Saturday.

"We have decided in principal to intensify our ongoing movement," Ali Ahmad Kurd, a senior lawyer, said on his way into the meeting. "We just want the judges back in their offices. We are working for the supremacy of the law and the constitution."

The position taken by the lawyers could have far-reaching consequences for Pakistan's political stability, just as the government faces mounting economic problems as well as Western pressure to tackle Islamic militancy.

The biggest party in the coalition, led by Asif Ali Zardari, insists it wants to restore the judges. But it has fallen out with its main partner, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, over just how to do it.

Sharif this week pulled his ministers from the Cabinet to protest the delay and said his party would support any lawyers' protests. Still, he vowed to support the government from the outside.

The issue is bedeviled by complex legal and political calculations.

Zardari, the widower of slain ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, wants to retain judges installed by Musharraf after the November purge and follow the restoration of the old judges with a raft of reforms expected to clip their powers.

Time-consuming legislation is required to protect that course from legal challenges that could cast the country into institutional chaos, Zardari's party argues.

But Sharif insists that since the ouster of the judges was illegal, they can be restored with a simple order from the prime minister - a point of view shared by many prominent lawyers.

Zardari insists he can still persuade Sharif to return to the government fold. But his reluctance to force a showdown with Musharraf has stirred talk that he is preparing to realign himself with the president if the coalition collapses.

Lawyers first took to the streets in March last year, when Musharraf first tried to fire Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry.

The protests galvanized the country's fragmented opposition and prompted a chorus of calls for an end to the rule of Musharraf, who had seized power in a 1999 military coup.

Musharraf imposed a state of emergency in November and swept the judges away just as they were considering the legality of his re-election to another five-year presidential term.

The former army strongman accused Chaudhry of corruption and conspiring against his plan to guide Pakistan back to democracy. But the crackdown only deepened his unpopularity and contributed to the political eclipse of his allies.