By James Rupert and Khalid Qayum
Feb. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The fate of Pakistan's former chief justice, who is languishing under house arrest, may spark the first big disagreement between the country's two victorious opposition parties as they try to negotiate a power-sharing deal.
The head of the Pakistan Muslim League, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, has demanded the reinstatement of Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. President Pervez Musharraf fired Chaudhry and 59 other judges last year to end legal challenges to his re- election.
Beyond expressing support for judicial independence, Pakistan Peoples Party leader Asif Ali Zardari refuses to comment on what to do about Chaudhry, 59. That may put Zardari, widower of slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto, in conflict with lawyers who last year rallied to the judiciary's defense, including some from his own party.
``If the Parliament thinks it's going to ignore the issue, the lawyers are not going to ignore it,'' Aitzaz Ahsan, head of the Supreme Court Bar Association and a PPP official, said in an interview in his home in Lahore. ``We are going to march on Islamabad from every direction.''
Lawyers, retired judges and parliamentarians will hold a protest rally from Lahore to Islamabad on March 9, the date Musharraf fired Chaudhry last year, to demand the reinstatement of judges, Ahsan told reporters in Lahore yesterday.
Ahsan himself has been detained without charge since November and was barred from speaking to the media until after the Feb. 18 election. Chaudhry is prohibited from meeting with…
Source : http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a7s6OWSPy1rU&refer=home
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