WASHINGTON — America is reducing its military aid to Pakistan by $50 million after the country’s president imposed emergency law and fired judges who ruled that he violated the Pakistani constitution.

President Bush today is expected to sign a revised aid package for Pakistan that holds up $50 million out of $300 million in military aid for Pakistan until the State Department confirms that Pakistan has restored the judiciary that President Musharraf shut down this fall.

Yesterday, the State Department’s assistant secretary for Southeast Asia, Richard Boucher, said, “We’re confident that we’ll be able to report to Congress on elements in the areas that they identified. … They are the same issues that we’re following very closely.”

Mr. Musharraf caused a political crisis on November 3 after he declared emergency rule and announced that he would not be stepping down as head of the military. He reversed the latter decision but has insisted that he has the right to run again for the presidency even though Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ruled he cannot seek another term.

Mr. Musharraf lifted the emergency law ruling on December 15, but he has not restored the judges to their positions. He has also stepped down as chief of the military.

The maneuverings of the Pakistani president who came to power through a military coup in 1999 are of the utmost importance to America’s war on Islamic terrorism. In the last two years, Al Qaeda’s central leadership has established a base in the tribal provinces on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Last year, Pakistan’s military signed the first of several ceasefire agreements with local insurgents in the region, effectively giving Al Qaeda and the Taliban a base from which to plot attacks on Afghanistan and other targets internationally. Al Qaeda leader’s, Osama bin Laden, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, are both believed to reside in the Pakistani border provinces.

The congressional restrictions on American military aid to Pakistan do not affect Islamabad’s ability to purchase F–16 fighter jets, according to Mr. Boucher. “The F–16 program is a Pakistani purchase — their money, they’re buying them — and our military assistance goes for a different purpose,” he told reporters yesterday.

The remaining $250 million in aid to Pakistan is directed to go specifically for law enforcement and counterterrorism assistance against Al Qaeda. Mr. Boucher yesterday said the State Department’s own review of Pakistani aid concluded that America should not give cash transfers to the Pakistani government for economic development, and instead, that it should dole out the money through U.S. Agency for International Development contracts. Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday warned against placing any conditions on the American aid package. “Conditionalities would not serve the interest of Pakistan-U.S. relations, which are very important for peace, stability, and progress in the region,” a Foreign Ministry spokesman, Mohammad Sadiq, said.