May 30, 2008	Friday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 24, 1429

ISLAMABAD, May 29: Supreme Court Bar Association President Aitzaz Ahsan has said that President Pervez Musharraf should be tried for keeping in confinement for five months the chief justice and other deposed judges along with their families.

“As things are unravelling, it seems that President Musharraf is standing on the exit door but he should face charges for detaining the family members, including children, of the deposed chief justice and 10 other judges for five months,” Barrister Ahsan told reporters here on Thursday.

He opposed granting a ‘safe passage’ to Gen (retd) Musharraf.

Deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and other judges of the Supreme Court, along with their families, were put under detention after the proclamation of emergency rule on Nov 3, 2007, by President Musharraf as the then army chief.

They were freed only when Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ordered their release after his election as the Leader of the House in the National Assembly.

“Is it not a crime to detain schoolgoing children for five months in their homes and not allowing them even to step outside on the lawns?” the SCBA chief asked.

Barrister Ahsan brushed aside the possibility of a new martial law, saying that military rule was imposed when there was disharmony among major political parties, while currently the Pakistan People’s Party, Pakistan Muslim League-N and Awami National Party were united for a common cause.

He said the sitting judges of the Supreme Court, despite being their neighbours, could not gather courage to notice the ordeal that the deposed judges and their families had been undergoing.

Barrister Ahsan said he was an active member of the PPP.

When asked if he would meet the party’s co-chairperson Asif Ali Zardari before the long march planned for June 10, he said a request in this regard on behalf of himself and other members of the legal fraternity was pending.

“The lawyers are only trying to fulfill the wish of Ms Bhutto,” Barrister Ahsan said, referring to the slain leader’s announcement made on Nov 10 last year that the national flag would be hoisted on the home of Justice Iftikhar and that she considered him the real chief justice of the country.

He welcomed the government’s efforts of bringing a constitutional package to undo many changes which had been made to the Constitution through the Eighth and 17th Amendments. However, he said, the legal fraternity believed that reinstatement of the judges did not require any executive order, parliamentary resolution or constitutional package.

He said the lawyers’ campaign would continue till the reinstatement of the deposed judges to their pre-emergency position.