On Friday, September 5, the three judges thrown out last year by Pakistan’s recently resigned President Pervez Musharraf were reinstated by the Supreme Court.

It was hoped that this move would cement relations between the various political adversaries there but that has not been the case so far.

At a ceremony on Friday the three judges, Shakirullah Jan, Tassadiq Hussain Jillani, and Syed Jamshed Ali were all sworn back.

Things worked out differently with ex chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, however.
Although he would be capable of renewing his oath he could not be reinstated as Chief Justice since it would not be that easy removing the newly appointed Chief Justice who had replaced him. Farooq Naek, Law Minister, commented that replacing the current Chief Justice could result in a deadlock.

As a result, differences between the two main political parties, that of Asif Ali Zardari’s Pakistan People’s Party, currently in power, and previous Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s party have risen to the fore once again.

Incidentally, Zardari, who was voted in as president yesterday, had objected to the move on the grounds that restoring the judges would involve constitutional amendments.

In November 2007 Musharraf had resorted to emergency rule to make changes, such as the removal of the Chief Justice from the court as well as to put an end to any legal challenge to his plan of continuing his presidency for the next five years. He was eventually granted immunity from prosecution for an unconstitutional clean up.

In the meantime the number of judges in the Supreme Court has been raised from 16 to 29 to avoid any complications of removing judges to maintain the appropriate numbers.