Six years ago a state of emergency was declared by President of Pakistan Pervez Musharraf on November 3, 2007, and lasted until December 15, 2007, during which time the constitution of Pakistan was suspended.
When the state of emergency was declared, Musharraf held both positions of President and Chief of Army Staff. He later resigned as army chief.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry reacted immediately to the emergency declaration andissued an interim order against this action. He also directed the armed forces of Pakistan not to obey any illegal orders. Later Army removed Chaudhry and several other judges from the Supreme Court and arrested them.
It was announced early that the state of emergency would likely end in late November or early December 2007. After being sworn in for a second presidential term on November 29, 2007, Musharraf immediately declared that the state of emergency would end on December 16, 2007, although the emergency actually ended one day earlier, on December 15, 2007, with an announcement by Musharraf.
The Pakistani general election previously scheduled to occur in early January 2008 was postponed. At the beginning of the emergency, Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan said on television that the general election could be delayed many months and perhaps up to a year. Later, the election was rescheduled to take place by February 15, 2008, as announced by Musharraf himself.
A few days later he called for the election date to be on or before January 9, 2008, before a final date of January 8, 2008, was decided. However, because of unforeseen events that occurred after the state of emergency ended, primarily the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and its aftermath, the general elections were again postponed by the Election Commission and were finally held on February 18, 2008.
