Pakistan’s Supreme Court said Prime Minister Imran Khan’s move to dissolve Parliament was illegal and ordered that the house be restored.
The decision on Thursday came after four days of hearings by the top court. Mr Khan will now face a no-confidence vote by legislators that he had tried to sidestep.
The assembly is expected to convene to vote on Saturday. The opposition has said it has 172 votes in the 340-seat house to oust Mr Khan.
Mr Khan dissolved Parliament on Sunday and set the stage for early elections after accusing the opposition of working with the United States to remove him from power.
His opponents had garnered the 172 votes needed to oust him after several members of his own party and a key coalition partner defected.
The opposition claimed Mr Khan violated the constitution and took their case to the country’s top court.
During the week, the five-member bench of Pakistan’s Supreme Court heard arguments from Mr Khan’s lawyers, the opposition and the country’s president before adjourning on Thursday.
Mr Khan said Washington wants him gone because of what he describes as his independent foreign policy, which often favours China and Russia. Mr Khan has also been a strident critic of Washington’s war on terror and was criticised for a visit to Moscow on February 24, hours after Russian tanks crossed into Ukraine.
The US State Department has denied any involvement in Pakistan’s internal politics. After the no-confidence motion was thrown out, Mr Khan dissolved the parliament and went on national TV to announce early elections.
“This is the unfortunate fact about Pakistani politics — the political issues, which should be settled in the parliament are instead brought to the Supreme Court to settle,” said analyst Zahid Hussain, who has written several books on militancy in the region and Islamabad’s relationship with Washington. “It is just a weakness of the system.”
Pakistan’s top court or its powerful military have consistently stepped in whenever turmoil engulfs a democratically elected government in Pakistan. The army has seized power and ruled for more than half of Pakistan’s 75-year history.
The military remained quiet over the latest crisis although army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa told a security summit in Islamabad over the weekend that Pakistan wants good relations with China, a major investor, and also with the United States, the country’s largest export market.
The latest political chaos has spilled over into the country’s largest province of Punjab, where 60% of Pakistan’s 220 million people live and where Mr Khan’s ally for chief provincial minister was denied the post on Wednesday after his political opposition voted in their own candidate.
