Pakistan Prez, Top Judge Reconciling?
Four months after he sought to remove Pakistan’s top judge from the bench, the country’s president is now trying to get back on his good side.
After a July 20 decision by the Pakistan Supreme Court that Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry had been improperly suspended in March and must be reinstated, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s president, is publicly seeking a reconciliation between the country’s military government and its increasingly powerful judicial branch. “We had family ties and hope to maintain [the] same harmonious ties in future,” he said Tuesday of Chaudhry, according to Reuters. Musharraf, also says he holds judges in “highest esteem” and never tried to politicize the judiciary.
Musharraf also accepted yesterday the resignations of Pakistan’s attorney general and deputy attorney general, which had been tendered shortly after the supreme court decision reinstating Chaudhry, according to the News, a Pakistan publication, among other media reports. He is expected to appoint their replacements shortly.
As discussed in an earlier ABAJournal.com post, the supreme court’s decision was seen as a important milestone demonstrating increased judicial independence and adherence to the rule of law in Pakistan.
