U.S. backs Pakistan judicial reform and mum on judges

By Paul Eckert, Asia Correspondence

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States backs the restoration of an independent judiciary in Pakistan, but has no position on whether judges purged by President Pervez Musharraf should be reinstated, a senior diplomat said on Thursday.

Musharraf, a key U.S. ally in fighting Islamist extremism, sacked the judges when he imposed emergency rule in November. The judges were expected to rule that his re-election as president in October was unconstitutional.

Of the two opposition parties that won February 18 parliamentary elections and are expected to form a government in coming weeks, the party headed by former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif demands the reinstatement of the judges.

U.S. senators in Washington on Thursday expressed concern the Bush administration had backed away from its insistence on an independent judiciary and appeared to be siding with Musharraf in his refusal to reinstate the judges.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee the judicial dispute is "something that we believe the Pakistanis themselves are going to have to sort out."

He added that "we have been silent on the subject" of whether particular judges should be reinstated and rejected the notion that Washington preferred one side over another in Pakistan's debate over the judiciary reform question.

"We are certainly not trying to block any changes of any particular kind, nor do we have some kind of prescription or formula for how they should go about reforming or improving their own judicial system," Negroponte said.

The top State Department official for South Asia, Richard Boucher, offered a more detailed discussion on Wednesday.

"We have not endorsed a restoration of the particular judges because that has been itself a political issue and, frankly, that remains a political issue between the People's Party and Nawaz's party in their negotiations," he told National Public Radio.

The Pakistan People's Party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto -- led by her widower, Asif Ali Zardari -- has been calling for the independence of the judiciary but not been insisting on the reinstatement of the judges, saying the new parliament should decide their fate.

Tom Malinowski, Washington advocacy director for Human Rights Watch, said failing to take a strong enough position on the judges risks reinforcing the belief among many Pakistanis that "the Bush administration is still hell-bent on rescuing Musharraf."

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)