Despite widespread opposition, procedures to appoint women to judicial posts at the State Council will be completed, Mona El-Nahhas reports During a stormy meeting of the State Council's special committee on Monday four of the committee's seven members rejected the appointment of women to judicial posts at the council. The special committee is the highest administrative body of the State Council which must endorse appointment decrees before they are presented to President Hosni Mubarak. Despite the majority stance State Council head judge Mohamed El-Husseini insisted on completing the appointments of female law graduates who applied late last year for vacant judicial posts. After completing the appointment measures and investigations of applicants, the special committee must be informed of the results to give a final say. El-Husseini told reporters at a press conference held after the four-hour meeting that he had the authority to issue whatever decrees he thought suitable. "What I care about is the reputation of Egypt and the State Council. This is my constitutional responsibility," he said. The decree, passed by El-Husseini on Monday, angered judges at the state council, who insist on ousting El-Husseini from his post. Procedures are now being taken to hold an emergency general assembly within the next few days to reply to El-Husseini's decree which, judges claimed, defied the will of the council. Judge Hamdi Okasha, chief justice of the Administrative Court, intends to file a lawsuit contesting El-Husseini's unilateral decree. The State Council Judges Club expressed its total rejection of El-Husseini's decree. Judge Yehia El-Dakrouri, the club chairman, announced that the club board will take the necessary measures to strip El-Husseini of his membership in the club. The State Council has faced much criticism in the wake of the recommendation, issued by its general assembly on 15 February, for women to be banned from judicial posts at the council. Only 43 of the 380 members of the general assembly took the side of female law graduates. The 334 members who voted against their appointment cited the fact that women are entitled to a six-year break to care for their children, and a year's leave of absence to accompany their husbands if they take up employment overseas, as the reason, arguing that such conditions of employment were untenable given the backlog of cases. "Such long periods of absence will not promote the work of the council," judge Mahmoud El-Attar, deputy chairman of the State Council, stated late last week in an attempt to counter criticisms of the general assembly's stance, not least from the National Council for Women. Last week's emergency general assembly was convened at the request of the special committee after it had itself failed to reach a decision on the appointment of female law graduates during a January meeting. The recommendation of the general assembly sent shockwaves through human rights organisations. During an emergency meeting held last Thursday the National Council for Women called upon the State Council to respect women's right, and on the same day representatives from more than 50 NGOs staged a sit-in in front of the State Council's headquarters. "It's a black decree in the history of justice in Egypt," the Egyptian Centre for Women's Rights said in a statement signed by more than 300 public figures. The decree, says women's rights activist Nehad Abul-Qomsan, was a blatant attempt to halt the promotion of women within the judicial hierarchy. In 2003, Tahani El-Gebali became the first woman to be appointed a judge at the Constitutional Court. In 2007 more than 30 women were appointed as judges after they won the approval of the Higher Council for Judicial Bodies. In a recent fatwa the Grand Mufti Sheikh Ali Gomaa said women could occupy any post, including the office of president.
