On November 5, 2007 the world mass media reported that Pakistani lawyers had launched massive non-violent protest actions against the declaration of national emergency (read: martial law) by Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf.
According to Reuters, Pakistani police baton-charged and scuffled with lawyers protesting outside the High Court in Karachi. Hundreds of lawyers, student leaders, and opposition stalwarts were arrested.
Karachi Bar Association president Iftikhar Hafeez was arrested.
A lawyer, Abdul Hafeez, while being arrested, shouted, “We are not scared of these arrests. We will continue our fight, come what may”.
Musharraf seized power in 1999 in a coup. This is his second martial law adventure..
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, in a bid to distance her superior Pres. George W. Busch from his own puppet Musharraf, urged the latter “to rejoin the road to democracy”, with a warning that US aid to Pakistan would be placed under review.
USA funds Pakistan’s imported war on terror to the tune of US $2 Billion a year.
The Pakistanis believe that Musharraf’s main motive in declaring martial law was to preempt the Supreme Court from invalidating his reelection as president last month.
In the light of the Pakistan experience, what action must the Filipino lawyers take to express their unity with their oppressed and injured brothers and sisters in the legal profession in that country, considering the principle of universality of justice, freedom, and truth?
So far, I have heard no strong institutional response and expression of support from the Philippine bar associations on this matter, especially the Integrated Bar of the Philippines (IBP).
Musharraf cited the judicial activism of the Supreme Court as one of his bases for the sudden declaration of martial law.
A president who is frightened by the alleged activism of an independent and scholarly Judiciary and who expresses such unfounded fright thru the abhorrent forms of martial law, oppression of his constituents, clamp on basic freedoms, and destruction of institutional democracy is bound to be exiled, at the least, if not killed, by his own people.
This statement should serve as a warning to our own militaristic president Pres. Gloria Arroyo and her generals and to the leaders of the overstaying military junta of Burma.
I propose the following:
1. 1. That the IBP convene an ad hoc national convention of leaders of all bar associations in the Philippines to adopt a formal resolution condemning the Pakistani martial law, the destruction of its Constitution, and the prostitution of its judiciary; and
2. 2. That the said convention discuss ways of pressuring the Philippine Government to unite with other concerned members of the United Nations and its mandated human rights organizations to establish a semi-permanent UN monitoring office in Pakistan that shall conduct continuing contacts and mediations with the martial-law president and military leaders of that country to work for the restoration of democracy therein and to protect the life and limb of protesters, NGOs and the opposition in its major cities;
Atty. Manuel J. Laserna Jr.
LCM Law, Las Pinas City, Philippines