Chaudhry’s suspension the previous March, following his refusal to bow to government pressure to resign, had incited relentless protests by Pakistan’s legal community and made him a symbol of the people’s desire for a fairer, more independent judicial system. In a sense, this movement, which contributed to Musharraf’s electoral defeat the following February and the return of democracy to Pakistan, prefigured the 2010-2011 revolutions in Tunisia and Egypt that sparked the Arab Spring.