The suspension of Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pakistan (SCP), on 9 March 2007, sparked a wave of protest from the legal community of Pakistan. The most recent wave of resignations included the Deputy Attorney General Nasir Saeed Sheikh and a senior civil judge Javed Memon. The issue at stake was the ability of the President to dismiss an acting Chief Justice, an act not without precedent in the political history of Pakistan.

Democracy is the most widely admired political system, but perhaps the most difficult to maintain. Democracy begins with excellent objectives in human governance with unquestionable intensions to impart freedom from injustice and social exclusion. It is characterised as a system in which expectations are raised because people identify themselves with the polity. There has been a greater urge for opening up the space for participation and competition in a state like Nepal which had a long history of monarchical domination.

It has been proved several times in the history of nation states that credible mechanism of governance takes years to build but may collapse in a single stroke. Nepal, today, is experiencing the same. Over the years Nepal has been forced to witness the systemic collapse of its political institutions. Democracy in Nepal is still far from realization, as the landlocked Himalayan Kingdom remains entangled in a two-way fight between the autocratic monarchy and Maoists.