ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After weeks of deliberation, Pakistan’s newly formed coalition government appears to have reached an impasse over its month-old promise to reinstate dozens of judges fired last year by President Pervez Musharraf.
The judiciary has been a key issue since November, when Musharraf dismissed about 60 judges and placed several prominent judges and lawyers under house arrest to head off potential legal challenges to his rule.
The move prompted protests across the country, and the judges’ reinstatement became a rallying cry of the two leading opposition parties, which were swept into power in February parliamentary elections.
Shortly after the vote, the leaders of the two parties vowed to return the judges to the bench in a public declaration viewed by many as a direct challenge to Musharraf. The agreement called for Parliament to pass a resolution reinstating all the judges within 30 days of the new government’s swearing-in.
But the coalition government suspended its first parliamentary session Friday. With an April 30 deadline looming for a decision on the judges, Parliament will have to reconvene for a special session while debate on the issue continues.
The National Assembly is widely expected to call for an extension of its session to resolve the dispute this week.
“There is a consensus on the restoration of the judges,” former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, leader of the Pakistan Muslim League-N faction, told reporters Saturday in Islamabad, the capital.
