Date:11/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/11/stories/2008031156260100.htm

Front Page

Musharraf studying pact

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: President Pervez Musharraf held a brainstorming session with his top legal aides on Monday to examine the threat to his political future from the agreement between the Pakistan People’s Party and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) to reinstate the superior judiciary to its pre-November 3, 2007 position.

The word coming out of the presidency is that the reinstatement of the judiciary cannot be done through a resolution in the National Assembly as the two parties have agreed, but only through a constitutional amendment that requires the support of two-thirds of the members at a joint sitting of the Assembly and the Senate.

Attorney-General Malik Mohammed Qayyum said the PPP-PML(N) “Murree Declaration” was meaningless as such a resolution would have no legal standing.