Chaudhry presses for return to chair

Quetta: Pakistan's deposed chief justice claimed yesterday that he was still the legal head of the Supreme Court and hailed the election defeat of President Pervez Musharraf's allies as the end of "one-man rule".

Pakistan's new government has pledged to reinstate within a month about 60 senior judges purged by Musharraf last year, raising the prospect of a showdown with the US-backed president.

In his first prepared speech since his release from house arrest last week, Iftikhar Chaudhry insisted his removal during emergency rule in November was illegal.

The judges who refused to swear a fresh oath of office during the emergency "claim that we are all the judges of the courts, and those people who took the oath ... are not legal and constitutional judges", Chaudhry told a gathering of lawyers in Quetta yesterday.

He said the results of February parliamentary elections "changed the country's culture". "Who did this? This is done by you people and the people of the country. The message is clear that in future everything will be constitutional in the country and there will be no more one-man rule," Chaudhry said.

Military rule

The parties of assassinated opposition leader Benazir Bhutto and former prime minister Nawaz Sharif swept to power in elections supposed to complete Pakistan's return to democracy after eight years of military rule.

Their coalition faces the tough task of dealing with mounting economic problems and militancy blamed for a surge in suicide attacks.

But the new government has also pledged to clip the powers of Musharraf, who stepped down as army chief in November and whose re-election as president the previous month is deeply disputed.

Musharraf purged the Supreme Court to prevent it from ruling on the legality of his receiving a new five-year term while he was still in uniform. If restored, the judges could revisit the issue.

While Musharraf has offered to cooperate with the new government, he has warned that a clash between the presidency and the parliament would damage Pakistan.

That has stoked speculation that he could petition the existing Supreme Court judges - whom Chaudhry denounced yesterday as illegitimate - to block moves to bring back the old guard.

The prospect of a new constitutional crisis would dismay Western governments eager for Pakistan's new government to keep pressure on Al Qaida and Taliban militants operating along the Afghan border.

Musharraf's power has been on the wane since he first tried to remove Chaudhry a year ago, sparking mass protests by lawmakers that galvanised the country's weak and divided opposition parties.

Bhutto's assassination in December contributed to the ruling party's heavy defeat and left the president so weakened that even his longtime US allies have distanced themselves from him in public.

On Monday, Musharraf looked tense as he swore in a 24-member Cabinet during a short, joyless ceremony in the presidential palace in the capital, Islamabad.

Three ministers from Sharif's party wore black armbands in protest at taking the oath from the former military strongman.

Sharif, who was ousted as prime minister and exiled when Musharraf seized power in a 1999 coup, is pressing hard for Musharraf's removal.

But Bhutto's party, which won the most seats in the new parliament and has appointed the prime minister and foreign minister, appears more cautious.