They marched in their black suits and white collars, sporting umbrellas and, occasionally, hurling police tear-gas canisters back at them. In the United States, legal revolutions tend to happen in writing. But in Pakistan, the lawyers took to the streets and led a protest movement that helped bring down a dictator.
On March 9, 2007, then-President Pervez Musharraf suspended Pakistan’s chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry. The judge had positioned himself as an outspoken, independent-minded jurist in a nation with a history of a weak judiciary. With elections approaching, Chaudhry was said to oppose Musharraf’s serving as both president and military chief.
