Pakistan Expected to Restore Former Justice to Supreme Court

By GottaLaff

Pakistan's been busy:

Unable to crush massive street protests today that spilled out of this city and threatened to reach the capital, the Pakistani government was expected to announce early Monday morning that it would restore the former chief justice of the Supreme Court and a group of other deposed judges in a major capitulation to opponents.

The move reflected the weakening position of President Asif Ali Zardari, a key American ally. Zardari had resisted bringing back former Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry for months, but faced mounting pressure from a broad coalition of opponents who demanded the reinstatement of Pakistan's independent judiciary and threatened to march on the capital, Islamabad, until Chaudhry was brought back.

The decision marked an extraordinary victory for Pakistan's legal community, which had been agitating peacefully for the judges' reinstatement for the past two years, and for Zardari's major political rival, former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. He defied house arrest today to lead supporters in a boisterous protest caravan along the 150-mile route toward Islamabad.