Islamabad: The party of slain leader Benazir Bhutto, set to form Pakistan's next government, has vowed to strengthen the country's judiciary by making it fully independent.

Bhutto's widower Asif Ali Zardari, the co-chairman of the party, said on Tuesday that a weak judiciary had been manipulated by dictators in past who sought to foil democracy.

The Pakistan People's Party intends to take steps "to strengthen the institution of judiciary by radically altering the mode of appointments of judges and (by) giving it financial and administrative independence," Zardari was quoted as saying by a party statement.

It was Zardari's clearest statement yet of the party's policy, but there was no mention of whether the PPP would reinstate Supreme Court judges who were sacked last year by President Pervez Musharraf.