Arabic: هشام البسطويسي Born May 23, 1951 Hisham el-Bastawisi is an Egyptian judge and served as the vice-president of the Court of Cessation. In March 2011 he announced his intention to run as a candidate in the 2011 presidential elections. The political platform for his candidacy is based on two principles: change and development. El-Bastawisi stated that his campaign is broad-based, designed to reflect what the country needs in general and believing that specialists would be more equipped to deal with the minute details. El-Bastawisi graduated from Cairo University in 1976 with a degree in law and worked as a lawyer and consultant before becoming a judge. He was one of the leaders of the judicial independence movement, calling for a complete separation between the judiciary and the government, and denounced the intervention of the Minister of Justice or the executive authority in the judges' affairs. He was an outspoken critic of the parliamentary elections of 2005, deploring the fraud, intimidation, thuggery and vote tampering that took place during the electoral process. He also criticized the lack of media attention devoted to the matter. In April 2006, el-Bastawisi and fellow judge Mahmoud Mekky were ordered to appear before a disciplinary tribunal for criticizing the electoral process and calling for the independence of the judiciary. They refused to enter the courthouse, stating that the disciplinary panel was unconstitutional. This event caused protests to break out in support of their case. The Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) stripped them of their judicial immunity and charged them with “defaming the state.” Shortly thereafter, el-Bastawisi suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized. El-Bastawisi returned to Cairo from Kuwait eleven days after the start of the January 25 Revolution. He gave a statement in Tahrir Square imploring the army to intervene and called for former President Hosni Mubarak to step down.
