Chaudhry's comeback is not just a reassertion of the integrity and dignity of Pakistan's judiciary. It is also, and more tellingly, an expression of the thought that even in states as unfortunate and as tenuous as Pakistan, there sometimes arise brave men not afraid to challenge the misdeeds of the likes of Pervez Musharraf.

In these past few months, Justice Chaudhry has waged a quiet, dignified, and insistent campaign for a restoration of not just his position but also of the high moral ground that Musharraf and his fellow generals sought to undermine in their attempt to have in place a pliant judiciary for Pakistan.

Scores of people have died in the crisis sparked by General Musharraf's move, in March this year, to have the chief justice walk away from office. When the president, in his military uniform and in the company of his friends, summoned Chaudhry to his office and leaned on him to quit, the chief justice did not bend. And, as events have subsequently shown, he has not broken.

What did happen was a swift erosion of support for the president and his supporters. The Muttahida Qaumi Mahaz, in a blatant demonstration of solidarity with Musharraf, gunned down more than two scores of individuals preparing to welcome Chaudhry to Karachi only weeks ago.

The police have manhandled the chief justice; and he was compelled to fly back to Lahore from Karachi without being able to get into the city. Despite such travails, Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has prevailed. Now the other judges of the Supreme Court, through their ringing endorsement of their embattled colleague, have sent out the warning that there are men and women in Pakistan ready and willing to bring their arrogant military rulers down a few notches. Rogues do not have to be indulged. That is the point they have made.

The judgement by the Pakistan Supreme Court evokes memories of individuals who in earlier times held themselves steady in the face of assaults from non-elected rulers. There was a time when Justice M.R. Kayani described the October 1958 coup d'etat in Pakistan as a rare instance in history when an army occupied its own country.

Kayani was a spirited man, whose sense of humour combined with his courage to disturb the sleep of men not used to opposition. He shared a dais with Field Marshal Ayub Khan and exchanged, in cheerful manner, barbs with the military ruler. When Ayub made a snide reference to the court cases Kayani needed to deliver judgement on, the judge went on an all-Pakistan offensive against the dictator.

His goal was simple: inform the country that a dangerous man had arisen, one in whose hands the future of the country would break and then shatter. Kayani did not address mass rallies of simple citizens or electrifying gatherings of lawyers as Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry was to do decades down the line.

His audiences were selective, people who despite their elitism comprehended the risk posed to Pakistan by its army. Kayani's remarks on the regime were caustic. Ayub thought the man was always snapping at his heels. He did not elevate Kayani from the West Pakistan High Court to the Pakistan Supreme Court. Kayani was not surprised. Nor was anyone else.

There are other instances of unadulterated bravery working in men and women of the law and of human rights in Pakistan. In 1981, Justice Dorab Patel refused to take a fresh oath of office under the Provisional Constitution Order decreed by the regime of the country's third military ruler, General Ziaul Haq.

There were other judges who did, men who today stand either forgotten by Pakistanis or reviled by them. Of particular note is Moulvi Mohammad Mushtaq who, through 1978 and early 1979, presided over the trial of detained former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, and eventually played an instrumental role in sending him to the gallows.

Mushtaq did all he could to humiliate Bhutto in court, mocked his manners and deprecated his reputation. He, thereby, reduced the hearings into a kangaroo court and gave Pakistanis to understand that, with men like Mushtaq, the judiciary could not but decline in esteem.

It was Dorab Patel who demonstrated, through his defiance of General Zia, that not everyone in the country was willing to genuflect before elements who come to power on the strength of unconstitutionality.

In our times, the strident, insistent, voice of Asma Jehangir in the defence of human rights in Pakistan has rallied people all across South Asia. She has consistently waged battle against men who have seen themselves as gods.

Jehangir has not let go of any opportunity to expose these presumptuous men as gods with feet of clay, in much the same way that I.A. Rehman, through a long career coming to the aid of individuals under assault by the state, has held up the hollowness of men having no claim to legitimacy.

Pakistani intelligence has always dogged Rehman and people who have shared his views. Asma Jehangir's is surely a name that arouses the ire of Pakistan's rulers. Her steadfastness of purpose, a legacy inherited from her father, has dignified Pakistan. For I.A. Rehman, no service to Pakistan could have been nobler than serving as its voice of conscience. He has done the job remarkably well.

It is a job that other Pakistanis could have done equally well, had they chosen to. Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada could have earned Pakistanis' respect had he not made a career of consistently being in the camp of military rulers.

He served Ayub Khan loyally, as attorney general and foreign minister. In the Zia years, he was attorney general once more. He has now emerged as the man who advised Pervez Musharraf in the Iftikhar Chaudhry case.

In the old days, Justice Munir missed carving a niche in Pakistan's judicial history. Justice A.R. Cornelius' proximity to Ayub Khan and Yahya Khan quite did not go down well with men who had struggled long and hard for judicial supremacy in Pakistan.

The Bengali Justice Ibrahim did a most encouraging thing by opting out of the Ayub Khan martial law regime in 1962. He would have done a whole lot better had he not linked up with the military dispensation at all.

The reinstatement of Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry should be seen as a warning to General Musharraf and people of his kind that the state cannot be a hostage to their ambitions. His assumption and retention of power, for all the constitutional measures employed to give it a measure of legality, do not stand historical scrutiny.

A coup is a most debilitating affair. It becomes unmitigated tragedy when, under its cover, a state goes through political mutilation. A coup is an overturning of morality, and once that comes to pass, it remains for men, such as those in the Pakistan Supreme Court, to speak up for the republic and reassure citizens that beyond the inky darkness lies a distant region of light.

The pusillanimity of ordinary men and women is a truth only brave men like Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry can transform into vocal resistance, through exercising their own moral authority.

Syed Badrul Ahsan is Editor, Current Affairs, The Daily Star.