Egypt's judges have announced that they will not supervise next week's referendum on the amendments to the constitution, reports Mona El-Nahhas In their first reaction to the endorsement of the proposed amendments to the constitution made by the People's Assembly this week, Egypt's judges have announced that they will boycott next week's referendum. Several months ago, and before their final approval, the constitutional amendments were opposed by the country's opposition parties, as well as by human rights groups and the judges. With the exception of state officials and members of the ruling NDP, who have been keen to defend the amendments and have described them as strengthening democracy, many have viewed the amendments as a step in the wrong direction. Egypt's judges were among the first to declare their opposition to the amendments, particularly since those to articles 88 and 179 of the constitution affect the role they play in the supervision of elections. The amendment to Article 88, for example, sets up an independent committee to replace the judges in regulating the electoral process. Under the new amendment the judges' role is limited to supervising the main polling stations, which number only in hundreds, while leaving more than 50,000 branch stations to be manned by state employees and controlled by the security forces. Under the amendment to Article 179, which has been criticised for allegedly stifling personal freedoms, the security forces are no longer obliged to get court orders before arresting suspects, searching houses, reading mail or tapping phones. "The judges will abide by the decisions made during previous general assemblies, calling for a boycott of their supervision of polls and referendums in cases where the judiciary's supervisory role is incomplete," Judge Ahmed Saber, board member of the Cairo Judges' Club told the Weekly. Complete judicial supervision means that judges control all the steps of the electoral process, starting with the supervision of the electoral roll and ending with the declaration of the election results. The judges argue that the amendment to Article 88 of the constitution opens the door to rigging. Asked how the judges' clubs would react if members working for state- affiliated judicial bodies were commissioned to supervise next week's referendum, Saber said that "the clubs would form a committee to monitor the referendum and report on what happens on that day". In March 2005, the judges issued a report assessing the referendum held on the amendment to Article 76 of the constitution, which was praised by officials as opening the door to Egypt's first multi-candidate presidential elections, but criticised by the opposition for including restrictions that it said impeded the nomination of opposition candidates. In their report, entitled Egypt's Conscience, the judges accused the state of manipulating the results of the referendum. According to Saber, the judges' clubs have recently been mobilising their members to take a unified stance on the boycott of next week's referendum on the new amendments. The absence of judges from polling stations in the upcoming parliamentary elections would lead, observers believe, to the kind of electoral fraud that has marred previous polls. Judicial supervision of presidential and parliamentary elections was introduced in 2005, though this has not prevented the occurrence of electoral infringements, which the judges have been keen to expose. In defending the amendment to Article 88 of the constitution, speaker of the People's Assembly Fathi Sorour referred to such infringements, saying that "complete judiciary supervision of the 2005 parliamentary elections did not prevent rigging". According to Sorour, the new amendment to Article 88 of the constitution means that electoral supervision can now be carried out according to international criteria. During the debate on the article at the People's Assembly this week, Sorour said that "reading the article carefully shows that it includes guarantees for fair elections, and more than those mentioned in the old article". Sorour and several other officials have also argued that the state is not against the judicial supervision of elections, and that the new amendment will not abolish the judges' role. Instead, he said, "it will just regulate their role," noting that no country in the world carries our the complete judicial supervision of elections. A few days before the amendments were approved, the Cairo Judges' Club sent a memorandum to President Hosni Mubarak apologising for not having presented its views on the amendments to the People's Assembly, as had been previously agreed. However, the judges' present decision to boycott next week's referendum comes after the state turned a deaf ear to the views of the different opposition parties and insisted on pushing through the amendments. "The judges are not ready to give opinions which will later be disregarded or devalued," the judges' memorandum said.
