Former Pakistani premier Nawaz Sharif said Friday that top judges sacked by President Pervez Musharraf will be reinstated on May 12, posing a fresh threat to the key US ally's grip on power. Sharif said the ruling coalition will introduce a parliamentary resolution to restore some 60 judges, including the country's chief justice, whom Musharraf deposed under a state of emergency in November. The two-time ex-premier made the announcement a day after holding talks in Dubai with coalition partner Asif Ali Zardari in a bid to resolve a deadlock over the issue that threatened their fragile alliance. “God willing, all the deposed judges will be restored on May 12,” Sharif told a news conference in the eastern city of Lahore after meeting with senior members of his Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party. “The national assembly will approve a resolution the same day followed by the issuance of notification of the restoration of judges sacked unconstitutionally on November 3,” he said. Musharraf imposed emergency rule and ousted his arch foe Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry and the other judges when it appeared they might overturn his re-election as president the previous month. The judges could take up fresh challenges to Musharraf's re-election after they are restored -- a move that would prompt yet another standoff between the president and the judiciary in the troubled nuclear-armed nation. “We will continue our struggle to rid this new democratic era of Pervez Musharraf,” said Sharif, whom then-General Musharraf ousted in a bloodless coup in October 1999. Sharif's party and the Pakistan People's Party of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto trounced Musharraf's allies in elections in February and formed a government the following month. Zardari and Sharif agreed at a summit in the hill resort of Murree in March to restore the judges.
