It is unfortunate that the issue of the restoration of deposed judges has been allowed to drag on for so long without any tangible sign that the prolonged negotiations between the PPP and the PML (N) have brought it anywhere nearer resolution. Rather, the failure of the two sides to come to a common understanding led to the parting of their ways from the coalition and a lot of other things have since happened to muddy the waters. It is these two political parties that count the most in this context by virtue of not only the majority they together command in the National Assembly but also the solemn commitments they have repeatedly made to the public. The people, the civil society and the legal fraternity have all been looking up to their leaderships to show political acumen to grab the present moment and give the people an independent judiciary and the rule of law. Their inability to reach a consensus on the issue has been a deeply frustrating experience of the voter who had elected them to quickly reinstate the judiciary as well as address the other pressing problems the country was facing. As the two deadlines passed without their expectations having been realised, 300 lawyers representing the community, which has been spearheading the movement against the President's November 3 unconstitutional acts, assembled at Lahore on Saturday and decided to take out a long march on June 10. Apparently, groups of lawyers would set out from different parts of the country and converge on Islamabad to register their protest at the authorities' indecisiveness. They are planning to hold three conventions to be addressed by sacked Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry before the long march. President SCBA and the leader of the lawyers movement Aitzaz Ahsan has reportedly decided not to contest the forthcoming by-elections for a National Assembly seat. It is good to hear Information Minister Sherry Rehman say that no restrictions would be placed on the march, though one wonders what the government has to offer them in the talks that it could not give to the PML (N). The legal fraternity's demand is no different. The other challenges the government has inherited from the previous regime are no less daunting. But, sadly, the PPP-PML (N) partnership has foundered on the very first one it decided to meet. Instead of bringing their differences out in the open, they should be making serious efforts to settle this fundamental matter. At home, the runaway inflationary spiral, water and power shortages and the sagging economy and in the foreign policy domain the most distressingly evasive issue of terrorism and negotiatations  with India on various oustanding issues paramount amongst them being Kashmir- these and many more problems are calling for the government's urgent attention.