Pakistan's Supreme Court ruled Friday that former president Pervez Musharraf trampled the constitution when he imposed emergency rule two years ago and all actions taken by him then were illegal. The ruling could invalidate the appointments of judges made by Musharraf in the six weeks after he suspended the constitution on Nov. 3, 2007. It also may strengthen the case for bringing treason charges against the former military ruler, further jolting Pakistan's political establishment at a time when the US wants it to focus on battling a Taleban insurgency. Under Pakistan's constitution, any charges of treason against Musharraf would have to come from parliament. The previous parliament had endorsed Musharraf's actions. Musharraf, who came to power in a coup in 1999, quit as president almost a year ago to avoid impeachment and has been living in London for the past two months. Friday's judgment, delivered by a panel of 14 judges headed by his nemesis, Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, means that Musharraf faces an extended exile, possibly in Britain. In the ruling, Chaudhry did not touch on whether Musharraf should be punished for his misrule, but lawyers and politicians said it was a landmark ruling that would deter future power grabs by Pakistani generals. Lawyers clapped and shouted “Long live the Chief Justice” and “Hang Musharraf” after Chaudhry read the judgment. “It locks the door to future adventurism,” Aitzaz Ahsan, the leader of the lawyers' movement that challenged Musharraf's rule, told reporters. Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari, described the ruling as a “triumph of the democratic principles, a stinging negation of dictatorship.” Neither Musharraf nor his lawyers attended this week's hearings, despite being summoned by the court. A lawyer had asked the panel to launch a treason case against Musharraf, but Chaudhry said the Supreme Court did not have the authority to do so. Saif Ali Khan, a lawyer for Musharraf, said the 14 judges, who gave the verdict, had been dismissed under emergency rule and were not competent to rule on it. “Under the simple legal norm of ‘no one can be a judge in his own cause', in my view, these judges should not have given ruling on legality or illegality of the emergency rule,” he said.
