Lawyers raise a voice in Pakistan

They were a soft-spoken group, these men in business suits, perched decorously on plastic chairs in a shabby courtyard outside the Islamabad Bar Assn. But nearly all had raw, hoarse voices.

“It’s because we’re shouting every day,” Mohammed Tayyab, the association’s secretary, said half-apologetically, clearing his throat. “We prefer to talk, but in these days, we have to shout.”

In Pakistan’s third week of de facto martial law, it is the lawyers who have shouted the loudest and longest. Since Nov. 3, these incongruous firebrands have spilled from their courtrooms into the streets, a pudgy and bookish vanguard of opposition to President Pervez Musharraf’s emergency decree.

Television coverage aired around the world, but not in Pakistan, has shown droves of lawyers clad in the black suits they must wear in court hurling stones at police and choking on tear gas. In the early days of emergency rule, more than 2,000 barristers wound up in jail, and hundreds more were beaten bloody or fled into hiding.

Now, the lawyers declare themselves unbowed. But all the same, with protests tightly suppressed, they are not quite sure what to do next.

Recent days have brought some bitter setbacks. On Monday, the reconstituted Supreme Court, purged of those justices Musharraf considers his enemies, handed down its first major verdict, endorsing the validity of the Pakistani leader’s election by lawmakers last month to a second presidential term.

Just before that, the legal fraternity got an unmistakable reminder of what its members see as a baffling betrayal: a lack of support for their cause from the Bush administration.

Visiting Deputy Secretary of State John D. Negroponte, the highest-ranking U.S. official to meet with Musharraf since the emergency decree, was asked at a news conference Sunday why the administration had failed to seek the reinstatement of fired Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry and other judges deposed by Musharraf for failing to sign a loyalty oath.

Negroponte pointedly avoided answering, saying instead that the U.S. hoped that thousands of political prisoners rounded up after the emergency decree would be freed.

The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, which has called repeatedly for an end to media curbs, a transition to civilian rule and the lifting of the state of emergency, also has refrained from any public statement favoring the reinstatement of fired judges -- the lawyers’ key demand.

The omission has been a deliberate one. American officials said they were willing to accept what might be seen as undemocratic practices as part of what they hoped would be a transition to a democratic government.

A Western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said some recent rulings by Chaudhry, including one that cleared the way for the reopening of a radical mosque stormed by government troops four months ago, had convinced some foreign observers that the chief justice had become a liability to political stability.

The lawyers, who have led anti-government protests since Musharraf first tried to fire Chaudhry in March, have received an outpouring of support from legal brethren around the world. But they cannot understand how the U.S. could countenance what has been, in effect, the dismantling of an independent judiciary, which they describe as essential to Pakistan’s democratic aspirations.

The U.S. stance is particularly disappointing to the many barristers who have studied, lived and traveled in the West. In the upper ranks of the profession, degrees from Harvard and Cambridge are not uncommon.

“We wonder how Americans can be on the side of democracy and not be on the side of a free judiciary,” lawyer Jamila Aslan said. “It’s as if the ‘J’ word, for judiciary, is somehow taboo in all this.”

Many lawyers were among the more than 3,000 jailed activists the Pakistani government reported Tuesday had been freed. Human rights groups said they could not immediately confirm the figure. The government also said that 2,000 people rounded up under emergency rule remained in custody.

Despite the releases, lawyers groups say they fear other steps against them may come soon. The government has hinted that the licenses of dissident barristers could be revoked. The legal team for Chaudhry, who is under house arrest in Islamabad, is fighting to prevent his banishment to Quetta, the provincial capital of his native Baluchistan.

Pakistan’s judicial system, a holdover from British colonial days, has a mixed record. Judges for decades were subservient to successive military rulers. The Supreme Court had taken an activist tack over the last two years, however, agreeing to hear a number of cases embarrassing to the government.

Musharraf’s emergency declaration is thought by many to have centered on his wish to depose Chaudhry and sideline a high court that reportedly was ready to declare his election invalid because he ran while serving as army chief.

Police cracked down hard on initial protests, but now appear content to allow small, scattered demonstrations. On Tuesday, as they have done almost every day, about 100 lawyers marched through the narrow, run-down streets surrounding the Islamabad District Court building.

“Leave this country, Musharraf!” they chanted as police looked on, leaning on their riot shields. A fruit vendor with a big basket of pears on his bicycle moved aside to let the marchers gopast, making a small bow of the head. A seller of pakoras, a deep-fried snack, proffered his wares to the passing lawyers.

Initially, the lawyers boycotted all court proceedings, bringing the country’s legal system to a grinding halt. But in the last week they have begun handling cases again, saying they do not want the courts’ years-long backlog to grow any bigger, or clients in need to suffer.

The Pakistani legal system is antiquated and paper-bound, with corridors and courtrooms filled with stacks of tattered legal volumes and thick, yellowing files. The streets surrounding courthouses are filled with storefront stalls offering services such as typing and notarizing.

“I support whatever the lawyers choose to do, even if it means there is no more business for us ever,” said Mushtaq Rashid, who makes a living photocopying documents outside the Islamabad District Court.

The lawyers acknowledge that they may not prevail immediately, but express certainty they will triumph in the long run.

“The people are with us; being a ‘black coat’ is a huge badge of honor,” said Tayyab, of the bar association. “I would not give it up for anything.”

laura.king@latimes.com

Times staff writer Paul Richter in Washington contributed to this report.