By Tim Mansel
BBC News, Lahore
Khalil ur-Rehman Ramday has pushed the boat out.
His blazer, open-necked blue shirt and dark trousers are smart but unremarkable. Yet for him they represent a minor celebration.
"It's three months since I put on a jacket and trousers," he says. "Since I've not been permitted to leave the house, I've just been wearing a shalwar and a shirt. So I'm very grateful to you for coming here. It feels so nice to be wearing this jacket."
An indication perhaps of how the spirit is sapped by house arrest, a condition under which Mr Ramday has lived since 3 November, when President Musharraf of Pakistan declared emergency rule.
'Unconstitutional'
"The whole family had been out to dinner and we got back at around eleven in the evening," he recalls.
"Then at around midnight a major in uniform walked into my house, asked for me, and when I came out of my bedroom I found him in my drawing room, and he told me that he had put paramilitary forces outside my house and that nobody could leave."
The prohibition applied even to his three-year-old grandchild, says Mr Ramday and for two weeks he was prevented from going to school.
Khalil ur-Rehman Ramday was, until 3 November, a justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court. In fact, he insists that he still is, saying the decision to dismiss him and 12 of his colleagues that day was unconstitutional.
"De jure and constitutionally I maintain that I continue to be a judge of the Supreme Court of Pakistan," he says.
Mr Ramday has played an integral role in the dispute between President Musharraf and Pakistan's judiciary which came to a head in March last year, when the president dismissed the Chief Justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudry from office, citing misuse of authority.
"You cannot conceive of a democracy without an independent judiciary"
The chief justice challenged his dismissal and in July and a 13-man bench of the Supreme Court, presided over by Mr Ramday, reinstated him.
"We thought that the dismissal of the 9th of March was not intended in good faith to purge the judiciary of a misconducting judge, but rather that it was an exercise in malice," he says.
Mr Ramday has spent much of the last three months reading and writing in the living room at the back of his house in a comfortable neighbourhood of Lahore.
Behind his chair stands a treadmill, borrowed from his nephew when it became clear he wasn't going to be able to leave the house for a while.
"I got so bored walking round and round the lawn," he says. "And I was recently diagnosed with diabetes and so taking exercise has become indispensable."
'Goose is cooked'
There is a wall full of family photographs, one of a gentleman whose wig betrays his calling as a judge of a previous generation.
"That's my father-in-law," he says. "He was chief justice of Pakistan and he also had the honour of being removed from office, by another general, Zia Ul-Haq, back in 1977.
"So it seems to be running in the family, being removed by generals," he chuckles.
The paramilitaries are long gone from the front gate and the road outside, and now just four policemen stand guard.
They stand smartly to attention as Mr Ramday approaches, but he's careful not to step into the road.
He's allowed out only to go to the local mosque for Friday prayers, although he was also permitted to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in December.
"I was escorted to the airport by the police and they were there to meet me when I got back and brought me back to the house," he says.
This is the first time a journalist has been allowed to visit him.
As to the future, he says he now accepts that his "goose is cooked", that he will not be going back to work after 19 years of sitting in Pakistan's superior courts. But that, he says, is beside the point.
"So far as my job is concerned, it's absolutely irrelevant to me. I have no ambition or desire to go back as a judge to the Supreme Court.
"But it's a question of institutions, it's a question of the rights of the people, and you cannot conceive of a democracy without an independent judiciary."
That battle is now being fought by judges and lawyers alike.
Bar associations all over the country have expressed their support for the dismissed judges and are boycotting courts presided over by judges appointed since 3 November.
On Thursdays black-suited lawyers hold noisy protests against President Musharraf and there's talk of things being stepped up. Meanwhile parliamentary elections are due next week.
There are several cars parked at the back of Mr Rehman's house, one a favourite old Mercedes which he says he's in the process of restoring. At the moment its wheels are missing and the car is propped up on piles of bricks.
"I look at that car sometimes and think that it rather resembles my career," he smiles.
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