Coverage of the Issue of Judiciary Crisis in National Newspapers of Pakistan

Abstract

Pakistan is passing through a number of domestic and international problems and pressures. One of the most important and recent internal problems is the issue of the judiciary crisis. The issue emerged as a result of a political fight between the then President of the country General Pervaiz Musharraf and the then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court Mr. Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and the earlier one dismissed the later one from his duties. Although, the government was changed, the new President Asif Ali Zardari had also denied reinstatement of the sacked Chief Justice but afterwards he had to do it. As a result of a huge movement during the long march, the Chief Justice was restored along with other judges on 16th March 20091 . The print and the electronic media of the country gave tremendous coverage to the issue. The purpose of this paper is to find out the nature and treatment given by the major newspapers of the country to the issue of the judiciary crisis. The outcome of the our analysis reflects that the national English and Urdu newspapers not only donated a huge space to the issue of the judiciary crisis but they also did not accept any governmental pressure to suppress the coverage of the issue. Most of the coverage was found as against the government and in favor of the dismissed Chief Justice.