PROFILE: Saeeduz Zaman Sidduqui, Sharif loyalist or man of principal?

By Fkahr Ahmed Sep 5, 2008, 13:08 GMT

Karachi - In Pakistan's three-way presidential election race, Saeeduzzaman Siddiqui is clearly the closest contender to his rival Asif Ali Zardari, the widower of slain Benazir Bhutto from the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP).

A former chief justice of the country's supreme court, Siddiqui's past is littered with controversies.

He is highly regarded as an old loyalist of Nawaz Sharif, a twice- elected former premier and head of his own faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (N).

Born in India on December 1, 1937, and acquiring most of his early education there, Siddiqui shot into a controversial prominence in 1997 when he ganged up with his other judge colleagues to unseat the then chief justice Sajjad Ali Shah, former premier Bhutto's favorite judge.

The era of 1997 was also the time when the country saw a bitter judicial crisis as superior court judges were pitted against each other, some supporting Bhutto, who was the opposition leader at that time, while the majority sided with Sharif, who was the premier.

Later this prolonged tussle led to an orchestrated attack at the supreme court building in the capital Islamabad by a youth wing of Sharif's party, allegedly to harm Shah.

The incident is considered as one of the bleakest periods in the country's judicial history, which ultimately led to Shah's resignation and opened the way for Siddiqui to secure the coveted seat by becoming the second in seniority.

Still, for many of his former colleagues and political analysts, Siddiqui is widely known as a principled person.

'He is a non-partisan person. He is the person who should be weighed in gold,' Sharif told reporters while announcing the presidential candidature.

Siddiqui is known for his famous decision in 1999 to defy orders to take a fresh oath when army chief Pervez Musharraf took over in a military coup and suspended the constitution.

Being the chief justice, Siddiqui not only slammed Musharraf and his junta's coup against the democratic government of Sharif, but also flatly refused to bow under the much maligned Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO), a law devised to obtain the loyalty of the judges.

Media records say that four military generals personally tried to persuade him at his residence to oblige Musharraf.

'Taking oath under the PCO, in my opinion, will be a deviation from the oath that I had taken to defend the constitution,' Siddiqui told newsmen at that time.

Consequently, Musharraf shortened Siddiqui's tenure through legal maneuverings and forced him to step down.

'I consider him largely a man of principle who can not be cowed under pressure,' said Nasir Aslam Zahid, a friend and former chief justice of a provincial high court from the Siddiqui's southern Sindh province.

Today many also think Siddiqui was graciously rewarded by Sharif at a time when the country is deeply divided in a civil war in two provinces, political chaos and a bitter year-long new judicial crisis, triggered by Musharraf's move last year deposing 60 judges from the supreme court and four provincial high courts.

'I am very disappointed by Nawaz Sharif's choice of selecting Siddiqui, whose judicial past is so controversial (due to the 1997 supreme court attack),' said Mushtaq Minhas, a famous anchorman of the private Aaj Television in a daily talk show.

But prominent political analyst Rasul Buksh Rais, a professor at the prestigious Lahore University of Management Sciences, disregard the anti-Siddiqui views, saying he is a man of principal and the best candidate.

'I think his past was made controversial only for political convenience as opposing Shah was a principled stand by Siddiqui because Shah was made supreme court judge out of turn by Bhutto,' said Rais.