ISLAMABAD, May 16: Law Minister Farooq H. Naek has stressed the need for measures to avoid a delay in resolving the issue of reinstatement of the deposed judges.

Although he declined to set a timeframe or give a deadline for it, he conceded that sooner the judiciary was restored better it would be for the nation, judges, legal fraternity and even for the PPP itself.

“The reinstatement of the deposed judges is being delayed by legal problems,” the law minister said, adding that parliament should work out the proper way of reinstating them.

He also conceded that judges who had been detained after removal from their posts in the wake of the imposition of emergency on Nov 3 last year, reserved the right to move damages suits, but said he did not know about the botched attempts to register FIRs by some lawyers against the detention.

Although the minister was non-committal about the method of reinstating the deposed judges, he hinted at their restoration through constitutional means for which a joint session of the two houses of parliament would be summoned before the budget session.

No ‘minus-one’ or ‘minus-two’ formula (restoration of judges without deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and or Justice Javed Iqbal) was under consideration, the minister said.

“The government believes in the restoration of the judges but is disinclined to take any hasty unconstitutional step,” he said.

On the matter of the seniority of the deposed judges, the minister said that whenever the judges were restored their seniority should be counted from Nov 3.

Similarly their pension benefits should be calculated from the original date of their appointment.

Mr Naek acknowledged that President Pervez Musharraf had acted “illegally by suspending the Constitution and introducing the PCO twice” and expressed the government’s intention to amend Article 6 of the Constitution (high treason) to deter anyone from abrogating the Constitution again or from condoning such actions.

Meanwhile, Mr Naek met US Ambassador Anne W. Patterson who told the minister that the United States would provide financial assistance for implementation of judicial reforms.