Accord on deposed Pakistan judges

Islamabad: Pakistan ruling coalition on Friday agreed to move a parliamentary resolution this week to restore the dozens of judges deposed by former president Pervez Musharraf last year.

The agreement between the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim League-N (PML-N) was mediated by the heads of two junior coalition partners, Awanti National Party (ANP) and Jamiat Ulema Islam (JUI).

ANP leader Asfandyar Wali and JUI head Maulana Fazlur Rehman told a news conference along with PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif at the Punjab House here that a joint committee of the two major parties would draft the resolution.

The committee comprising two members each from PML-N and PPP would draft the resolution and relevant details in the next two days, the ANP leader said.

Illegal steps

Rehman said the November 3, 2007 extra-constitutional steps of Musharraf would be declared illegal and unconstitutional through the resolution.

On that day Musharraf as then army chief had placed the country under emergency rule, suspended the constitution and carried out a sweeping judicial purge to ward off a looming verdict against his controversial re-election.

The JUI leader said the resolution could be moved in the 342-member National Assembly on Monday, adding that there was no deadline for the passage but it would be done during the this week.

Sharif thanked the leaders of ANP and JUI for having played a "very constructive role" towards resolving the lingering issue of reinstatement of the deposed judges.

The PML-N chief said after the resolution was tabled on Monday it could be debated for two days and then adopted.

"The coming Wednesday must be the day of restoration of the judges," he asserted.

The former prime minister said his party had no intention at all to quit the alliance with PPP and pointed out that it was due to the united stand of the four coalition partners that Musharraf resigned on August 18.

He said on August 7 he and PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari had signed an agreement that the judges would be restored within 24 hours after Musharraf's exit from the presidency.

"The judges should have been reinstated on August 19, but further 72 hour-time was sought to sort out the matters and we agreed to this proposal of ANP and JUI," Sharif said.

The PML-N said the whole nation wanted that the "outrageous acts" of Musharraf must be undone in order to shut the door for any adventure against the constitution in future.

No compromise

Sharif ruled out any compromise on the restoration of the deposed chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

"Justice Chaudhry's exclusion will turn the whole exercise of restoration of judges into a joke," the PML-N chief observed, when told that the PPP was believed to be against reinstating the chief justice.

The ANP and JUI leaders were given the fence-mending task after the meeting of the heads of the coalition parties last Tuesday during which differences again flared up between the PML-N and PPP leadership.