Judges meet tomorrow to up the ante in their campaign against the new judiciary law expected to be endorsed next week, reports Mona El-Nahhas During an emergency general assembly that will convene tomorrow at the headquarters of the Cairo Judges' Club, judges will vote on how to continue their campaign against the new Ministry of Justice law regulating the judiciary. Sit- ins and partial work stoppages are among the options that will be considered. The draft law, which failed to meet the expectations of judges, was approved last week by the cabinet and now goes to the People's Assembly for endorsement. Judges say the governmental draft, prepared behind their backs, is a travesty of the law they had themselves drafted. "That's why they were keen on hiding the draft from us," said judge Zakaria Abdel-Aziz, the club chairman. Despite repeated requests, the Judges' Club was only given a copy of the draft law after it had been approved by the cabinet. The club, said government officials, has no legal authority to prepare laws. After finally receiving a copy of the draft judges prepared a memorandum including their views which was handed to People's Assembly Speaker Fathi Sorour during a meeting on Monday. The previous day members of the Judges' Club board had met Shura Council Speaker Safwat El-Sherif. During the meetings, say members of the club board, they drew attention to a number of shortcomings in the draft. "Should the draft be endorsed against the will of judges then they will join other segments of society to battle for its overthrow," said Hesham Geneina, secretary-general of the Cairo Judges' Club. The ministry's draft included just two of the judges' demands, granting budgetary independence from the Ministry of Justice, and de-affiliating the office of the prosecutor-general from the Justice Ministry. Yet the prosecutor-general will remain a presidential appointee, and the draft stipulates no conditions for eligibility to the office. While judges had demanded members of the Supreme Judiciary Council (SJC) be elected, the draft law maintains the existing formation of the state- appointed council. Demands that the general assembly of the Court of Cassation approve the president's choice of its head were likewise ignored. Judges had insisted that a reformed SJC should be charged with assessing the performance of judges, though that task, on which prospects for promotion and demotion depend, remains in the hands of the executive. The new draft, while giving a supervisory role to the SJC, keeps actual power in the hands of the justice minister. "Besides ignoring judges' demands, the draft introduces articles that aim at penalising us," said Judges' Club Deputy Chairman Nagui Derballa. Article 103 of the draft states that judges referred to disciplinary courts will have their salaries stopped until exonerated of any charges. "And while going into detail about employees working for judicial bodies, even the office boys in courts, the draft failed to say a single word about judges clubs," said Derballa. Government officials say the draft law only regulates judicial bodies and that judges clubs, the statutes of which are similar to those governing professional syndicates and non-governmental organisations, were deliberately excluded. During a meeting of the People's Assembly's legislative committee held on Monday to discuss the draft, Sorour questioned the legal status of judges clubs in what many saw as the opening gambit of a government campaign to dissolve such clubs and thus silence a body that has been increasingly critical of its policies, or else subject them to greater restrictions. The campaign to have the state- drafted judiciary law dropped may well be just the first in a series of battles the judges undertake.
