ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 2 -- Pakistan's coalition government has agreed to reinstate the country's chief justice and 60 other judges deposed last year under a controversial order by President Pervez Musharraf, a move that could threaten Musharraf's tenuous grip on political power.
"I want to inform the entire nation that on Monday, May 12, 2008, all deposed judges will be restored," former prime minister Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nsaid Friday during a televised news conference from Lahore.
The announcement came after two days of round-the-clock negotiations in Dubai that at times exposed the shaky foundation of the political alliance between this country's ruling factions, Sharif's party and the Pakistan People's Party.
Sharif had been a fierce advocate of reinstating the judges without conditions as soon as possible. The co-chair of the Pakistan People's Party, Asif Ali Zardari, who was until very recently Sharif's bitter political foe, had pushed for constitutional changes that would spell out the role of the judiciary more clearly but also strip the president of several powers, including the authority to dissolve Parliament.
On Friday, Sharif said Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and the other deposed judges would be restored to the bench through a parliamentary resolution in 10 days. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani would then sign an executive order completing the arrangement. Sharif said a five-member committee will hammer out details of the resolution over the next several days.
Sharif shared few details of the proposed resolution, but said the day Musharraf removed the judges was "one of the darkest days in Pakistan's history." He also said he had agreed with Zardari's request to allow the current judges to remain on the job, which would expand the number of Supreme Court judges to more than 20. Zardari offered no public comment on the judges Friday.
No comments:
Post a Comment