The Supreme Constitutional Court has ruled that there are no impediments to women sitting as judges on the State Council, reports Reem Leila The rumbling dispute over the appointment of female judges to the State Council was finally settled after the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) ruled in favour of women. On 14 March, two days before Egyptian Women's Day and after a five-hour, closed deliberation, the SCC ruled in favour of women sitting on the bench of the influential State Council. Furthermore, the SCC ruled not only that women had the right to be appointed as judges but that the State Council's General Assembly had no authority to ban them. The SCC ruling underlined that there is nothing in Egyptian law to prevent female judges from being appointed to the council. Reporters were denied entry to the courtroom during the deliberations and SCC staff members were instructed not to make statements to the press. The ruling ends a dispute that began in February when the State Council General Assembly voted against the appointment of female judges. A rift then formed between the council and its chairman, Mohamed El-Husseini, who refused to accept the decision. On 22 March the State Council's Executive Board is due to convene to continue the appointment procedures of female judges. In response to a government inquiry regarding the constitutionality of denying female judges seats on the State Council, the SCC stressed that the law grants men and women equal rights to assume judicial positions in administrative courts. The decision came after Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif and Minister of Justice Mamdouh Marei requested the clarification of legislation governing the appointment of members of the State Council. Current regulations stipulate that members of the State Council must be "Egyptian", a word which in Arabic is specific to the male gender. The Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that in context the implied citizen and was not gender specific. Last month's State Council's overwhelming General Assembly vote against appointing women was seen as a backwards step for women's rights. The issue, says Khaled Ali, head of the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights, first came to the fore in the summer of 2009 when some 300 women applied for positions as judges. They were screened and interviewed, following which 95 judges requested an emergency meeting of the general assembly to discuss the hiring of women. On 15 February 334 out of 380 judges voted against the appointment of women. "Judicial restrictions on constitutional rights are unacceptable. The State Council already has a record of bias against female judges," said Ali. The history of the debate is long. Professor of international law and former minister of social affairs Aisha Rateb, who was also the first Egyptian woman to be appointed as an ambassador, applied for a position on the State Council in 1949 but was denied on the basis of gender. After being rejected she sued the government. One of its members later filed an opinion confirming neither Egyptian law nor Islamic jurisprudence prevented women from serving in the judiciary. The judge concluded the problem was societal. Rateb's struggle was supported by the media, the people, and by feminist leader Hoda Shaarawi. The religious position on the matter has not changed much since then. In 2002, the grand imam of Al-Azhar, the late Mohamed Sayed Tantawi, and the Mufti Ali Gomaa, stated that neither the Quran nor Sunna prohibited women from becoming judges. "There is no categorical religious reference that alludes to women's incapacity to become judges," says Abdel-Moeti Bayoumi, a member of the Islamic Research Centre and professor of jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University. According to Bayoumi, different schools of jurisprudence have different opinions on the matter. While some schools -- El-Tabari and Abu Hanifa -- endorse female participation in the judiciary, El-Maliki and El-Shafei oppose it. "My personal take is that if women were barred from entering the judiciary in the past, things are different now. Women are more informed. The judiciary is more elaborate. The law is clearly written," says Bayoumi. "A judge is not in a position to make individual decisions, and that makes it easier for women to be judges." Zeinab Radwan, deputy speaker of People's Assembly, describes the State Council's General Assembly decision as running counter to principles of citizenship, equality and Islamic precepts. The promotion of women was, she argues, always viewed as a manifestation of national progress. Radwan, who is also a professor of Islamic philosophy, questioned the logic of women being appointed to both constitutional and ordinary courts while being excluded from the State Council. "This backwards step is incompatible with the era we live in and the achievements made by women in the past 10 years," says Radwan. The State Council, which was established in 1946, hears cases brought by individuals against the state. There are several precedents for the appointment of women judges in Egypt. Tahani El-Gibali's promotion to the Supreme Constitutional Court, recommended by the Supreme Judicial Council and endorsed by President Hosni Mubarak in January 2003, is generally seen as a milestone. There are currently 42 female judges sitting in general courts and many more in the Administrative Prosecution Authority and in state courts.
