The emergency imposed by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf will be lifted within a month provided the law and order situation in the country improves further, a top government lawyer said on Saturday.
Attorney General Malik Qayyum said the security situation in Pakistan was the "main reason for the imposition of emergency and its continuance".
"In any case, it won't go beyond two months because we don't want to make it a permanent feature. If the law and order situation improves or if there are no untoward incidents, it will be much sooner than that," said Qayyum, who has emerged as a key figure in the decision-making process in the past few weeks.
He made it clear that the government intended to end the emergency in a month if the law and order situation improved.
"I don't see the emergency continuing forever or even after two months," he told Dawn News channel.
"The emergency had its effect and the situation is fast improving," Qayyum pointed out.
Musharraf had cited the internal security situation, especially a spurt in activities by extremists, and judicial "interference" by the superior courts as the main reasons behind his decision to impose emergency on November 3.
Asked about the arrest of a large number of lawyers, who have been at the forefront of protests against the emergency, Qayyum said most of them would be released "within days".
Only lawyers against whom there was evidence and those detained for "heinous crimes" would be held by authorities, he said, adding such cases were "very few".
Qayyum also dismissed reports that judges of superior courts, including the Supreme Court, who had not endorsed the emergency were under house arrest.
"No judge is under house arrest, this is a wrong impression. Nobody has ever stopped any judge," he said.
Claiming that the government has not placed any restrictions on the judges, he said: "They can even go to their hometowns, they won't be forcibly removed. The fact that they are no longer judges doesn't mean that we don't have to respect them. They are entitled to the same respect they were earlier and I'll ensure that."
Qayyum's comments came amidst reports that the government planned to remove several of the detained judges, including former Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, from Islamabad to other places.
The attorney general also clarified that the emergency was "extra-constitutional" as it was imposed by Musharraf in his capacity as the army chief.