GEO News reports that the People’s Party-led coalition government has ordered the vacation of the Islamabad home of deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

Farooq Naik, the former defense attorney of Asif Zardari now law minister, has said that more judges will be reappointed to the Supreme Court under fresh oaths.  It is clear that Chaudhry will not be among those judges.

This appears to be the end of the road for Chaudhry and the lawyers’ movement.  But I would not count them out completely.  

If and when the political-security tsunami hits, they could be among the few not drowned in the deluge.  

Months ago, the lawyers’ movement began to reframe their cause in a broader context, explaining the integrality of the restoration of the judges to social and economic justice.  Unfortunately, that stalled.  The movement hit a brick wall — namely a bloc consisting of most of the country’s internal and external power brokers.  Its main political advocates were isolated and outnumbered.  

Now Chaudhry, Aitzaz Ahsan (who did not attend Zardari’s oath taking ceremony), and others have little choice but to graciously acknowledge their defeat short of accepting the legitimacy of Chaudhry’s non-restoration.   They need to move on to broader issues, most important of which is the challenge of establishing the rule of law and a uniform and effective judicial system across the country from Karachi to Khyber.  

Their chances of success are quite grim.  Frankly, neither the present government in Islamabad nor its major benefactors care; they fail to see or choose to ignore that in the absence of a working judicial system arise vigilantees like Baitullah Mehsud and Karachi’s lynch mobs.  

But, if the lawyers’ movement fails to speak out on behalf of the rule of law, who, besides the presently isolated PML-N and APDM, will?  Farooq “Johnny Cochran” Naik?  Afrasyiab “Sab Say Pahlay Pakhtunkhwa” Khattak?  Fazlur Landrover?  Or Altaf “Yea, I Got Your Mobile Phone” Hussain?  

In short, the lawyers’ movement should settle down, reconsolidate, and move on from a loss in just one of many battles in a war to bring the rule of law to Pakistan.