Two major parties in the ruling coalition on Friday denied deadlock over reinstating top judges including deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry but admitted there were severe differences on how to do this. Pakistan People's Party (PPP) said it wanted to set up a parliamentary committee to look into ways through which judges could be restored.
Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) insisted it would prefer to get jurists back to their lost jobs through a mechanism already agreed with the PPP - reinstatement by a parliamentary resolution. Both sides, however, sounded optimism that a meeting between parties' chiefs next week would resolve the matter by removing differences.
Restoration of almost 60 judges of higher judiciary, President Pervez Musharraf sacked last year is seen as first litmus test for the coalition government of bitter political rivals of the past. PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari and PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif are expected to meet in Islamabad on coming Tuesday or Wednesday in a bid to find out an appropriate way out of the problem, officials from two parties said.
PML-N parliamentary leader in the National Assembly, Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told media there was confusion at present how judges could or should be restored. "We chalked out modalities last month...but there are doubts now," he said, referring to an accord Zardari and Sharif signed on March 9.
Nisar was talking to journalists after PML-N held a separate meeting of its parliamentary party ahead of the National Assembly sitting. Parliamentary parties from both the PPP and the PML-N have so far been meeting together.
Nisar, however, was quick to deny an impression that there was deadlock between the two parties over the reinstatement of judges, saying the difference was limited only to methodology.
In the agreement called Murree Declaration, both parties agreed their new government would reinstate top judges including Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry through a parliamentary resolution within 30 days of the National Assembly starts functioning. The PPP, the largest in the four-party ruling alliance, seemed to have different ideas now.
Information Minister Sherry Rehman told a news conference here that the parliamentary committee to decide a method of judges' restoration would be formed next week.
Law Minister Farooq H Naik, another PPP leader, had already endorsed the idea of forming such a panel, less explicitly through. But Nisar said his party had serious reservations on any scheme other than decided between Zardari and Nawaz in Murree. "We are not in favour of either the parliamentary committee or the constitutional package. It will negate our accord," the PML-N leader said.
There had of late been some media reports suggesting the government was preparing a constitutional amendment package under which arrangements were being made to send Iftikhar home 'honourably' after reinstating him once. The PPP is hitherto denying any such scheme though.
MQM FACTOR: Nisar said his party's parliamentarians were angry at what happened in Karachi on Wednesday-violence in which several people including lawyers were killed. He added most of PML-N members blamed the MQM for the tragic incident.
"Some people were hard to control...we had to move tom defuse their anger," Nisar said giving an idea of his party's opposition to the Karachi-based group.
A recent initiative by Zardari to also engage MQM into dialogue to broaden the base of what he called a national government based on across the board reconciliation was another reason irritating PML-N. The league leaders are openly opposing MQM joining the ruling coalition because of their hostile relation in the recent past.