Pakistan on Wednesday named a successor to the country’s top judge and a new army chief on Wednesday, promoting a veteran infantry commander to the most powerful position in the country.

Pakistan on Wednesday named a successor to the country's top judge and a new army chief on Wednesday, promoting a veteran infantry commander to the most powerful position in the country.

Justice Tassaduq Hussain Jillani will take over as chief justice on December 12 after Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry steps down a day earlier, a senior government official told AFP.

General Raheel Sharif will take over as head of the 600,000-strong army from General Ashfaq Kayani, who is retiring after six years at the helm.

The change of command comes with the country facing a daunting array of challenges -- the six-year Taliban campaign which has claimed thousands of lives, vexed relations with India and the winding-down of the 12-year NATO occupation forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

Chaudhry, originally appointed in 2005 during the military rule of Pervez Musharraf, has divided opinion.

Some have praised him for fearlessly taking on politicians and security agencies, while others have criticized him for exceeding the proper authority of the chief justice and interfering in political matters.

In June last year he chaired a Supreme Court bench that sacked the then-prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani after convicting him of contempt of court.

The move, likened by some observers to a "judicial coup", marked the culmination of a long-running tussle between the judiciary and the government led by the Pakistan People's Party over corruption allegations against the then-president Asif Ali Zardari.

Chaudhry has also taken on Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies, which are often seen as untouchable, demanding they explain the fate of missing persons believed to have gone into their custody.

Asma Jahangir, a human rights activist, lawyer and former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, said she expected the 64-year-old Jillani to be a far quieter presence.

"Jillani will serve as a judge while the present chief justice acts like a politician. Jillani will do what a judge is supposed to do, he has no special agenda," she told AFP.

"The judiciary under Iftikhar Chaudhry was a one-man show, everything and everybody was under his complete control."

Jillani has been a Supreme Court judge since 2004 and like Chaudhry was sacked when Musharraf imposed emergency rule in November 2007.