Tension within the Islamist-dominated upper house, the Shura Council, which has gone on for two weeks, is not expected to ease soon. The council is scheduled to hold plenary meetings next Monday and Tuesday, and it is likely that the controversial amendments to the judicial authority law proposed by Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist MPs will be on top of its agenda. Until Al-Ahram Weekly went to print, officials of the Shura Council, including its chairman and Brotherhood official Ahmed Fahmi, refused to say anything about what issues will be discussed next week. Some of the council's committees are currently busy preparing reports about the state's 2013/2014 budget and development plan as well as amendments of the new income tax law to be discussed in plenary sessions. On the other hand, the council's Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee, also in its capacity as Proposals and Complaints Committee, held a surprise meeting on Tuesday with the top graduates of the faculties of law. Taher Abdel-Mohsen, deputy chairman of the committee and a leading official of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), said the top graduates of the faculties of law voiced criticism of the judicial system, asserting that it does not give them the chance to start a career either as court judges or as members of the prosecution. “When they heard that amendments of the judicial authority law will be discussed, they asked for a meeting with the committee to voice their grievances,” said Abdel-Mohsen who refused to confirm whether the amendments of the judicial authority law will be discussed by the council next week or not. Abdel-Mohsen said top graduates of law faculties believe that there should be a complete overhaul of the judicial authority law to inject new blood in its ranks and to rid it of the “inheritance” system which enabled the children of senior judges to inherit most of the positions of their fathers even if they are not qualified.” Some graduates said Ahmed Mekki, the former minister of justice, peddled influence to get four of his sons appointed as judges. They asked that the expected amendments should include an article stating that when it comes to appointing new judges or prosecutors, high priority must be granted to top graduates of law studies. Sobhi Saleh, a leading FJP official and a member of the Shura Council's Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee, explained that the committee has finalised its report about the MPs' proposed amendments of the judicial authority law. “The amendments, proposed by the FJP, the Wasat [Centre] and the Reconstruction and Development Party [the political arm of Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya], will be on top of the agenda of the Shura Council's debates next Monday. If passed, they will be discussed in principle and then referred back to the constitutional committee to be discussed article by article,” said Saleh. Ihab Al-Kharrat, chairman of the Shura Council's Human Rights Committee, said the majority of the council's non-Islamist members, including even the MPs of the Ultraconservative Salafist party, the Nour, believe that “the time is not right to discuss any amendments of the judicial authority law and that this matter should be left to the House of Representatives, which is expected to be elected at the end of this year. The problem is that the Muslim Brotherhood is in a rush to have all the powers in its hands and that this will complicate the political crisis in Egypt rather than open a way out of it,” said Al-Kharrat. In the meantime, members of the independent Judges Club said the club has reservations about the so-called Justice Conference designed by Islamist President Mohamed Morsi and the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC), to be held in the next few days. Abdallah Fathi, deputy chairman of the club, announced that most judges decided to boycott this conference. “In order to participate in this conference, the club stipulated that it must be held under our complete supervision and that President Morsi or the executive authority should have no hand in it,” said Fathi. Fathi also argued that “the majority of judges hold the view that the amendments of the judicial authority law cannot be discussed by the Shura Council and that the constitution stipulated that the House of Representatives must be in place to debate it.” This, Fathi added, is not to mention that Shura Council MPs are not authorised by the new constitution (Article 101) to propose laws; this right is reserved for the president, the government and MPs of the lower house (which has yet to be elected). Fathi indicated that if SJC insisted that preparations for the “Justice Conference” must go on, their response will be to boycott it. The Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) is scheduled to give its final say on whether the law regulating the election of the Shura Council is constitutional or not next Sunday. In June 2012, the court ruled that the law regulating the 2012 election of the People's Assembly, Egypt's lower house parliament, was unconstitutional and as a result the Islamist-dominated assembly had to be disbanded. Law professors believe that the court has two choices: to rule that the law regulating the election of the Shura Council is unconstitutional on the grounds that it is the same law which produced the dissolved People's Assembly, or to rule that the election of the Shura Council has become constitutional simply because the new constitution made it immune to dissolution. The appointment of the SCC's board member Hatem Bagato as minister of parliamentary affairs makes the second choice more likely.
