| Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry | |
|---|---|
| 18th Chief Justice of Pakistan | |
| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 22 March 2009 |
|
| Preceded by | Abdul Hameed Dogar |
| In office 30 June 2005 – 3 November 2007 (deposed 3 Nov 2007 – 22 Mar 2009) |
|
| Preceded by | Nazim Hussain Siddiqui |
| Succeeded by | Abdul Hameed Dogar (De facto) |
| Justice Supreme Court | |
| In office 4 February 2000 – 27 June 2005 |
|
| Nominated by | Mohammad Rafiq Tarar |
| Chief Justice Balochistan High Court | |
| In office 22 April 1999 – 3 February 2000 |
|
| Nominated by | Mohammad Rafiq Tarar |
| Preceded by | Amirul Mulk |
| Succeeded by | Javaid Iqbal |
| Justice Balochistan High Court | |
| In office 6 November 1990 – 22 April 1999 |
|
| Personal details | |
| Born | 12 December 1948 Quetta, Pakistan |
| Nationality | Pakistani |
| Religion | Islam |
Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry (Urdu: افتخار محمّد چودھری) (born 12 December 1948 in Quetta) is the current Chief Justice of Pakistan.He became chief justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court in 2005 and soon became not only a central figure in the nation's political struggles but an icon to the country's legal profession and others campaigning for the rule of law. He was suspended by President General Musharraf on 9 March 2007, when he refused to oblige Musharraf by refusing to resign. He was later reinstated by Supreme Court of Pakistan on 20 July 2007.After having been elected as President for second term by the Parliament, Musharraf in November 2007 pre-empted an impending court decision against his re-election and suspended the constitution and declared a state of emergency.[1] Justice Chaudhry convened a seven-member bench which issued an interim order against this action.[2] He and other judges were again removed from their offices and put under house arrest with his family members in November 2007 when President Pervez Musharraf declared a state of emergency.Chaudhry was reinstated in the early morning of 16 March 2009, by an announcement made by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani in his address on all public and private news channels.
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Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was born on 12 December 1948 in Quetta, Balochistan Province, Pakistan. Iftikhar Chaudhry's forefathers belong to a City known as Jalandhar in the state of Punjab, India. Chaudhry belongs to Gujjar clan,his father, Chaudhry Jan Muhammad,a police officer, migrated from India at partition to a village in Faisalabad District and then went to Quetta, Balochistan during partition in 1947.He has spent all his life in Quetta and moved to Islamabad, when he was elevated judge of Supreme Court of Pakistan in the year 2000.Chaudhry has three brothers who are settled abroad and he is second eldest child of his parents. He has a wife, Mrs Faiqa Iftikhar, and five children. His two sons are Arsalan Iftikhar and Ahmed Balach Iftikhar.He has three daughters namely Ayesha Iftikhar, Ifrah Iftikhar and Palwasha Iftikhar.
Chaudhry has a Bachelors in Arts and Bachelors in Law (LLB) from Jamshoro-Sindh.[3] He joined the bar in 1974. Later, he was enrolled as Advocate of the High Court in 1976 and as an Advocate of the Supreme Court in 1985.[3] In 1989 he was appointed Advocate General, Balochistan by Akbar Bugti the then Chief Minister of Balochistan. .[3] He was elevated as Additional Judge, Balochistan High Court on 6 November 1990 until 21 April 1999.[3] On 22 April 1999 he became Chief Justice of Balochistan High Court. Besides remaining as Judge of High Court, he discharged duties as Banking Judge, Judge Special Court for Speedy Trials, Judge Customs Appellate Courts as well as Company Judge. Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry also remained President of High Court Bar Association, Quetta, and was elected twice as Member of the Bar Council. In 1992 he was appointed as Chairman of Balochistan Local Council Election Authority and thereafter for second term in 1998. He also worked as Chairman, Provincial Review Board for the province of Balochistan and was twice appointed as Chairman of the Pakistan Red Crescent Society, Balochistan.[3]
On 4 February 2000 he was nominated Justice of Supreme Court of Pakistan. He is said to be the youngest Chief Justice of Pakistan, who will be serving the longest period that any other chief justice has ever served in the history of Pakistan's judiciary. On 30 June 2005 he became the Chief Justice of Pakistan.[3] At present, Justice Iftikhar is also functioning as Chairman, Enrollment Committee of Pakistan Bar Council and as Chairman, Supreme Court Building Committee.[3]
After the proclamation of Provisional Constitutional Order, on 26 January 2000 an order Oath of Office (Judges) Order, 2000 was issued that required that judiciary take oath of office under PCO. Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and a few other judges of superior judiciary, took oath under PCO. After failure of any court order issued by then Chief Justice Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui of annulling proclamation of emergency, these judges took oath. Although this oath ceremony is dubbed as controversial but soon it was provided immunity by the Parliament in Legal Framework Order, 2002.
On 9 March 2007, Chaudhry was suspended by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.Iftikhar Chaudhry was summoned to Army House and was asked to resign in the presence of five Army Generals, including heads of intelligence services. Chaudhry refused to resign so Musharraf decided to file a Presidential reference against Chaudhry for misconduct. Upon chaudhry's refusal to resign, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf forwarded the case to Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) as per procedure in constitution of Pakistan.
It was the first time in the 60-year history of the Pakistani Supreme Court that a Chief Justice was suspended. The suspension was made on the grounds of complaints against Chief Justice Chaudhry for violating the norms of judicial propriety, corruption, seeking favours and misbehaving with senior lawyers. He was also accused of interfering in the working of the executive branch. On the other hand Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry too decided in the first time of history of Pakistan to challenge Pervez Musharraf and his reference in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. Pervez Musharraf could not swallow this as he had plans to get rid of Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry by sending the reference to SJC. He did not want Chaudhry to remain Chief Justice as he was an independent judge and had blatantly refused to facilitate Musharraf in his plans to get another five-year mandate through Supreme Court as his predecessors had done. Chaudhry on sensing that the judges of SJC were doing what was dictated to them by Pervez Musharraf refused to have his case heard in SJC and hence decided to challenge these dubious allegations in Supreme Court of Pakistan. Chaudhry's petition was taken up by thirteen member bench of supreme court, headed by Justice Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday. Chaudhry was represented by five top lawyers of Pakistan, known as, Aitzaz Ahsan, Hamid Khan (lawyer), Munir A. Malik, Ali Ahmad Kurd and Tariq Mehmood. This panel of lawyers of Chaudhry was also termed a 'Dream Team', who fought valiantly for Chaudhry, inside and outside the court.
After his suspension, there was unrest in the country with regard to the validity of the allegations against Chaudhry, as well as doubt as to whether Musharraf technically had the power to suspend the Chief Justice under the circumstances.There was great outpour of public on roads to greet Chaudhry when he would travel to address Bar Associations.People fron all over the country would come only to see a glimpse of a man who had said 'NO' to a dictator in a room full of five Generals.His processions would take hours and hours to reach their final destination.But on 4 May 2007, Pakistan was witnessing a glimpse of revolution if not the revolution itself. The rallying point was of course Iftikhar Chaudhry. As he headed towards Lahore from capital Islamabad, millions lined 250 km-long-highway all the way to catch a glimpse of Iftikhar Chaudhry. An otherwise four-hour journey took 24 hours. Such a spontaneous mass mobilisation was unprecedented.On 5 May 2007, Chaudhry with his counsel and politician friend Atizaz Ahsan, who is also the party member of the PPP, reached the Lahore Bar Association in morning for the dinner, the association was holding in his honor since last night.[4]
On 20 July 2007, Chaudhry was reinstated to his position as Chief Justice in a ruling by the thirteen-member bench of Pakistani Supreme Court headed by Justice Khalil ur Rehman Ramday. His counsel of five lawyers represented him against 16 senior lawyers representing the Federation. The ruling combined 25 constitutional petitions filed by various parties, but referred most of the issues raised by the 24 petitions not filed by Chaudhry himself to lower courts for extended adjudication. All thirteen of the sitting justices agreed that Musharraf's action had been illegal, and ten of the thirteen ordered Chaudhry was to be reinstated and that he "shall be deemed to be holding the said office and shall always be deemed to have been so holding the same."
Chaudhry's victory was hard to be swallowed by Pervez Musharraf.In his desperation on Saturday, 3 Nov 2007, General Pervez Musharraf, who was the President and Chief of Army Staff of Pakistan at the time, declared a state of emergency and suspended the nation's constitution and parliament at the same time. He locked all the judges up in order to take revenge from them for giving a judgement in Chaudhry's favour. The declaration accused the judges of violating article 209 of the Constitution of 1973.[5] Pervez Musharraf in his madness not only put chaudhry and all the judges under house arrest but also chaudhry's young children. His youngest son, Balach, required physiotherapy that too was not provided. His daughter had to take her A'Level exam at home, held under the supervision of British Council Pakistan.
On 15 November Geo News reported that Chaudhry had ordered the Islamabad Inspector General of Police to take action against his and his family’s house arrest and their possible relocation to Quetta. According to the channel, Chaudhry held the interior secretary, the commissioner, the deputy commissioner and the assistant commissioner responsible for his house arrest. He said he was still the Chief Justice of Pakistan and the official residence was his by right.[6]
Just after general elections in February, on 24 March 2008, on his first day of premiership the Pakistani PM Yousaf Raza Gillani ordered Chaudhry's release from house arrest.[7][8]
In October 2008, Chaudhry visited the Supreme Court building.
The Lawyers' Movement announced a "long march" for the restoration of the judges, especially Chief Justice Iftikhar from 12 to 16 March 2009. The government of Pakistan refused to reinstate the judges and declared section 144 in effect in three of the four provinces of Pakistan thereby forbidding any form of gatherings of the "long march". Arrangements were made to block all roads and other means of transport to prevent the lawyers from reaching the federal capital, Islamabad. Workers of the main political parties in opposition and the lawyers movement as well as other known persons from the civil society were arrested. Despite these efforts, the movement continued and was able to break through the blockade in Lahore en route to Islamabad in the night between 15 and 16 March 2009. A few hours later, on the morning of 16 March 2009, the prime minister of Pakistan restored Chaudhary Iftikahar as chief justice of Pakistan through an executive order.[9] after which the opposition agreed to stop the "long march".
Iftikhar Chaudhry, surprised the whole country when he suspended privatisation of Pakistan Steel Mills (PSM) on the plea of PSM workers’ union. It did not merely embarrass the government but jeopardised the whole privatisation process too. Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who was heading the bench, observed that the main objectives of the privatisation policy were poverty alleviation and debt retirement, but these were not given due weightage in the mills’ privatisation deal. He objected to the fact that the Cabinet Committee on Privatisation took the Privatisation Board’s recommended price of Rs 17.20 per share for granted and consequently, shares were sold at the low rate of Rs 16.81.
Some very important cases were heard in the supreme court in the 2007. Decisions have already been taken in some:
Just prior to the holding of the October 2002 General Elections a five member bench the Supreme Court of Pakistan that Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was a member of dismissed a petition which challenged the promulgation of the Legal Framework Order(LFO)2002 by Chief Executive and President General Pervez Musharraf. Under the LFO General Musharraf announced amendments to the constitution which restored executive powers to the President, including the right to dismiss the National Assembly, appoint Governors and Service Chiefs and created a National Security Council (NSC).[10] The main controversy started in 2009 after restoration of all Judges, the Oath taking of Judges on PCO in past was then declared crime by the same Judges who has taken oath on PCO in the past.
On 13 April 2005, in the "Judgment on 17th Amendment and President's Uniform Case", Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry was one of 5 Supreme Court judges who dismissed all petitions challenging President Musharraf's consistitutional amendments. In a wide ranging judgement they declared that the Legal Framework Order (LFO) instituted by General Musharraf after his suspension of the constitution, the 17th amendment which gave this constitutional backing, and the two offices bill which allowed Musharraf to retain his military uniform whilst being President were all legal because the Parliament had approved the amendments.[11]
On 30 July 2009, a 14 member bench of the Supreme Court of Pakistan ruled that all the judges who had taken an oath under the Provisional Constitution Order (PCO), were removed from office and are now facing the Supreme Judicial Council. Two days later an ordinance signed by President Asif Ali Zardari officially removed all PCO judges from office..[12]
In the wake of the imposition of emergency rule in Pakistan, on 14 November 2007, the Harvard Law School[13] decided to award its highest honour, the Medal of Freedom, to Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, following the military crackdown the previous week. He becomes the first Pakistani to be presented with such honour and a third person in world to receive this award other than Nelson Mandela and Oliver Hill.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry formally received the Harvard Law School Medal of Freedom during his visit to the United States in November, 2008.[14]
The National Law Journal picked Chaudhry as the lawyer of the year for 2007.
The Association of the Bar of the City of New York granted Chaudhry an honorary membership in the association on 17 Nov. 2008, recognizing him as a "symbol of the movement for judicial and lawyer independence in Pakistan."
| Legal offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Nazim Hussain Siddiqui |
Chief Justice of Pakistan 2005–2007 |
Succeeded by Abdul Hameed Dogar De facto |
| Preceded by Abdul Hameed Dogar De facto |
Chief Justice of Pakistan 2009 – present |
Succeeded by Incumbent |
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