June 28, 2008	Saturday	Jamadi-us-Sani 23, 1429

WASHINGTON, June 27: Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of the lawyers’ movement, has warned that further delay in restoring the deposed judges could lead to violence.

Addressing a captive audience at Amnesty International’s US headquarters, Mr Ahsan urged the United States to stop supporting the forces opposed to an independent judiciary in Pakistan.

He also rejected suggestion that he has come to Washington to delay or stop US economic and military assistance to Pakistan.

Mr Ahsan said that when he says that continued refusal to restore the judges may plunge the country into violence, “I am not issuing a threat. It is a warning.”

The country, he added, wants the judges restored and if it’s not done, “the movement will go out of our hands. Not Aitzaz Ahsan but somebody else may lead the lawyers’ movement and they may not be as peaceful as we are.”

He said the suggestion to make compromises, such as asking the deposed chief justice to opt out, was like “asking a rape victim to be silent and withdraw her complaint.”

To ask the judges to accept a framework created by President Pervez Musharraf was like “asking a rape victim to sleep with the rapist” to placate him.

Mr Ahsan was vocal. He was impressive. And he appeared committed to the cause of judiciary. He criticise all those opposed to his cause and did so with conviction and was fair in his criticism.

But he danced around questions suggesting that now is the time for him to quit the PPP or if he counted Asif Zardari among those opposed to an independent judiciary.

“Yes, I have differences with the party leadership on this one issue. But we agree on hundreds of other issues,” said Mr Ahsan when asked why he does not resign from the party. “I am PPP. I will not quit the party.”

Asked if Mr Zardari is blocking the restoration of judges, he said: “I go by what people say and he has said that he wants the judges restored.”

Mr Ahsan went into the history of the “de facto doctrine” – from the Texas military courts of 1921 to the judgments of the Pakistani courts following the Nov 3 decree – when asked if an independent judiciary could undo the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO) that wiped the slate clean for Mr Zardari and revive corruption cases against him.

“What judges might or might not do, I don’t know … they may or may not review the NRO and reopen the corruption cases,” he said. “There is a de facto doctrine (to deal with such situations) as you cannot reopen everything.”

Mr Ahsan said that the judgment that has to go is the one that “perpetuates the alleged usurper … so the only judgment that ought to be reviewed is the one that justified the Nov 3 decree.”

He noted that the current Supreme Court had to validate Mr Musharraf to validate itself and that’s why this judgment has to be reviewed. “It may or may not be possible to do so in the NRO case.”