The Pakistan Peoples Party and Sharif’s faction of the Pakistan Muslim League, which lead the coalition government formed after February’s general elections, have failed to agree on how the judges should be reinstated. Lawyers say they will begin protests from next week if the restoration isn’t made by the end of this month, the News newspaper reported last week.

The coalition wants to settle the judges issue before it tackles stripping Musharraf of powers such as his ability to dismiss Pakistan’s parliament. The new government remains united in its resolve to strengthen democracy and ensure the supremacy of parliament, Gillani said.

The four-party coalition has “unity in diversity,” APP cited Gillani as saying during an address when he opened a college in Mianwali yesterday.

The PPP wants the reinstatement to be part of a package of constitutional changes that would require approval by a two- thirds majority in parliament. Sharif’s party favors lawmakers passing a resolution that calls for the judges to be returned.

Committee Meets

Asif Ali Zardari, 51, who has led the PPP as co-chairman since the assassination of his wife, Benazir Bhutto, and Sharif, 58, formed a committee that met last week to try to draw up proposals on how the reinstatement is made.

The committee ended its meeting without formulating any plan. The judges were dismissed by Musharraf on Nov. 3 when he imposed emergency rule for six weeks.

In a March 9 agreement, Zardari and Sharif pledged to reinstate the judges through a parliamentary resolution within one month of forming the government. Lawyers say the deadline is April 30, one month after the new cabinet was sworn in.

“There seems no reason for the delay,” Sharif, a former prime minister, said in a televised briefing in Islamabad two days ago. “The declaration very clearly says, first, that the judges should be reinstated; secondly, the move should restore their Nov. 2 status.”

Musharraf, who seized control in a 1999 coup by ousting Sharif, surrendered his main source of power, the post of army chief, in November.

source: bloomberg