RAWALPINDI, April 16: The objective of the lawyers’ movement is not only the reinstatement of certain judges but also the independence of judiciary that is possible only if all November 3 unconstitutional steps of President Pervez Musharraf are annulled.

This was stated by High Court Bar Association President Sardar Asmatullah while delivering a lecture on “Constitution and the judicial crisis” to the final semester girl students of Sharia and law from the International Islamic University Islamabad on Wednesday. The students visited the Lahore High Court here and attended the lecture.

The bar president apprised the law students of the ongoing struggle of lawyers and the hardships they have been facing. He said judicial activism of deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry was not new, as such activism was witnessed when Sajjad Ali Shah was the chief justice of Pakistan.

He said Justice Chaudhry made many bold decisions about missing persons and privatisation of different departments besides taking suo motu notices to safeguard the rights of the downtrodden. All these steps of Justice Chaudhry on the one hand drew applause from the common man while on the other earned the ire of the president, he added.

Sine March 9, 2007, lawyers have been struggling against the dictator who even did not accept the verdict of a larger bench of the Supreme Court setting aside the reference against the CJP.

Sajida Chaudhry, a civil judge who rose to fame when she attended a lawyers’ convention in Rawalpindi on March 28, 2007 where the then suspended chief justice of Pakistan was the chief guest, said she had attended the event without any fear as she deemed it lawful. She said she was transferred to Bhakkar as a punishment by the then Lahore High Court chief justice. Ms Chaudhry, who also teaches at the university, accompanied the students to the high court.

Talking to Dawn, many of the students said they believed the November 3 steps were unconstitutional and against the larger interest of the nation.