Pakistani judges bear brunt of emergency

A month after emergency rule was imposed, the gate to deposed Supreme Court Judge Khalil-ur-Rehman Ramday's house remains locked. Five officers stand sentry outside, allowing him to leave only on Fridays to pray at a mosque under police escort. "I'm being held here as a prisoner," the 62-year-old Ramday told The Associated Press by telephone from his residence in Lahore. President Pervez Musharraf has been pounded by criticism at home and abroad after his Nov. 3 suspension of the constitution. Eleven Supreme Court judges who could have derailed his plans to prolong his eight-year rule remain under house arrest, the nongovernment Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says. They have been replaced by more pliant justices who rubber-stamped Musharraf's re-election as president. Dozens more High Court judges who refused to take a new oath of office have been sacked. Opposition parties, who say the moves toppled the one pillar of the state that has shown signs of independence, now are threatening to boycott the Jan. 8 parliamentary elections. "The act of dismissing 50 judges in one go was the biggest blow the judiciary has ever known in Pakistan," former Chief Justice Sajjad Ali Shah wrote in the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. "Now the president has nothing to fear from the judiciary." But there has been little outcry from Pakistan's Western allies. US officials have repeatedly sidestepped questions about whether the judges should be reinstated, and President Bush last week described Musharraf, a key ally in the war on terror, as "a person who has done a lot for Pakistan democracy." The response from foreign governments rankles Ramday, a judge for 19 years who regards himself as a rightful member of the Supreme Court."I'm surprised at the governments and the administrations who claim to be leaders of the civilized world and leaders of freedom and democracy. I can't reconcile to this, that nobody uttered even a single word on judges being dismissed, and not just that, judges being held in custody. "Can you imagine a US Supreme Court judge being held in custody only because he thought he would like to decide a case in the manner his conscience dictated?" Ramday declined to say how the court would have ruled in Musharraf's election case, but strongly hinted proceedings were not going in the president's favor. "I think they knew the weakness of their case, and they reacted, and reacted very violently," he said. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have demanded the immediate release of the 11 Supreme Court judges held in Islamabad and Lahore.