March 16, 2009 is an historic day in the history of Pakistan when the judges who refused to take oath under PCO of President Pervez Musharraf were restored after a long struggle by the lawyers, civil society, workers of PML(N) and Tehreek-i-Insaaf. These judges were sent packing home including the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary by the former President Pervez Musharraf. This was done before the judgment by a bench of 7 judges headed by chief Justice Iftikhar declaring the PCO as an illegal order on 03 Nov, 2007 could be announced. These judges were restored by the PPP government under great pressure. However, the Chief Justice Abdul Hameed Dogar was asked to continue till the date of his retirement and the Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhary who in the books of PPP government had become part of the history and never to be restored was nominated as Chief Justice in waiting. He was to take over from Chief Justice Dogar on his retirement which was yet another illegal act of the government. Every one was expecting that the restored judiciary would work independently and will dispense justice without fear or favour or pressure from any dictator. No one knew that, that the restored judiciary was an eye sore to the government of Zardari and his cronies who had come to power as a result of NRO signed by the former dictator President Pervez Musharraf. Now the aggrieved nation started filing the past corruption cases with the new independent judiciary, the NRO case being the first one. Since PPP stalwarts were directly affected, they opened up a defensive posture to every judgement the Supreme Court passed. The former Law and Justice Minister Mr Babar Awan and the Interior Minister Abdul Rehman Malik have been the main hurdles in the implementation of the judgements of the Supreme Court in every case. I give full credit to the Supreme Court especially the Chief Justice who have worked on a daily basis without any break ever since restored, to hear and decide various cases which came up for their hearing to include suo moto cases. The PPP government parried all the judgements which affected their party or party ministers/members and did not implement a single judgement of the superior judiciary. In one case where the Interior Minister was convicted and had to undergo imprisonment, the President used his discretionary powers to pardon him before the normal procedure of appeals could be adopted. In the light of foregoing, the public feels what is the use of such independent judiciary, where the government defies all its judgements and has failed to implement any of the judgements passed by the Supreme Court. On one hand, the PM says (in the parliament) that they respect the judiciary and on the other hand they defy their judgements and use delaying tactics. Lately, they have brought another case of revisiting the ZA Bhutto case which his own daughter in her two tenures as PM did not consider to revisit. Mr Babar Awan who all along has been a great admirer of Gen Zia-ul-Haq who signed Bhutto's execution orders, is pleading the case and claims that it would not be Babar Awan but Bhutto speaking in the court. The public wants the government to first implement the orders given so far by the Supreme Court in its letter and spirit and then open new cases. There are host of corruption cases which must be decided first and all the looted money by the rulers be brought back to improve the dying economy of the country. We hope the Supreme Court would use the option given in the constitution for the implementation of its orders if defied by the government. MUHAMMAD AZHAR KHWAJA, Lahore, May 21.