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Supreme Court orders army to restore democracy within three years

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May 13, 2000

ISLAMABAD, MAY 12 (AP) - Pakistan's Supreme Court on Friday ordered the military that seized power in a bloodless coup to restore democracy in Pakistan in three years.

However, the Supreme Court dismissed a petition seeking the return of ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's government saying that the Oct. 12 military coup was justified.

But the court said the army should be able to accomplish economic and political reforms within three years. At the end of three years, the court gave the army another 90 days in which to hold elections. In an abbreviated decision, the Supreme Court said the "military takeover was justified under the doctrine of necessity. Sufficient evidence was presented by the state of corruption of the former government."

However that being said the Supreme Court ruling said protracted military rule is neither good for the army or for the country.

"Prolonged interference of the military in politics is not good," said the court ruling. "It will politicize the army and democracy should be restored within the shortest possible time."

The Supreme Court then set the deadline of three years and three months, a timeframe the army is likely to accept. However there was no immediate reaction from the military leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The military seized power from Sharif charging runaway corruption, economic mismanagement and power mongering that had alienated the provinces.

Sharif has been in jail since the coup, convicted in April of hijacking and terrorism. Those charges were linked to an incident on Oct. 12 in which Sharif allegedly denied the commercial airliner returning Musharraf to Pakistan permission to land in southern Karachi. The aircraft landed after the army took power but apparently with only seven minutes of fuel remaining.

Musharraf who has formed a combined civilian and military government, suspended the constitution and introduced a provisional constitution has resisted international pressure to set a deadline for a return to democracy in Pakistan.

Previously Musharraf said his military-led government needed to establish economic and political reforms that would allow democracy to take root in Pakistan, a country ruled by the army for 25 of its 53-year history.

Few people in Pakistan have been pressing for quick elections. The overwhelming demand of most people has been for the arrest and prosecution of the corrupt in Pakistan.