The Power of NO!... Part 1

On March9, 2007, Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry said "NO" to then President Pervez Musharraf's request that he resign, and his defiance sparked a revolution of lawyers who refused to allow guns to drown out the voice of the law. Justice Chaudhry said: "I felt that I was only doing the duty of my conscience." But as the rule of man threatened to overwhelm the rule of law, his defiance guided Pakistan's march to justice. "It was the proclamation of a new manifesto for Pakistan, a declaration that the pursuit of justice can not be subverted."

Quaid-i-Azam in his speech on Criminal Law Emergency Power Bills on Feb 6, 1919 said:
"No man should lose his liberty or be depreived of his liberty wihtout a judicial trial in accordance with the accpeted rules of evidence and procedure... the powers which are going to be assumed by the executive, which means substitution of executive for judiciary, such powers are likely to be abused, and in the past we have instances where such powers have been absused... there is no precedent or parallel that I know of in any civilized country where you have laws of this character enacted...
it imperils the liberty of the subject and fundamental liberties of a citizen."

Some declared this decade the era of independence of judiciary and it was achieved in what Helen Keller best discribed words "We can do anything we want to do if we stick to it long enough".