The newly-elected chairman of the Alexandria Judges Club appears determined to court controversy, writes Mona El-Nahhas During an interview with the independent newspaper Al-Masry Al-Yom published on 21 January, the newly-elected chairman of the Alexandria Judges Club Ismail El-Basyouni said the majority of younger judges and prosecutors lack both experience and a sense of professionalism. "They wrongly assume that challenging the government will help them redress their grievances," El-Basyouni told the newspaper, and in an attempt to justify the government's continued referral of civilians to military courts argued that in "doing so the presidency may well be acting on suspicions that some judges working in civilian courts are members of an outlawed political group" -- a difficult to miss reference to the Muslim Brotherhood. He also attacked those judges "who published, in coordination with another syndicate, names of their colleagues", another barely veiled reference, this time to Mahmoud Mekki and Hesham Bastawisi who are alleged to have leaked the names of judges involved in rigging elections during the 2005 presidential and parliamentary polls to the Bar Association. In 2006, Mekki and Bastawisi were referred to a disciplinary court which cleared Mekki while reprimanding Bastawisi. Seven of the 14 members of the board of the Alexandria Judges Club, belonging to the reformist group of judges, called an urgent meeting earlier this week to discuss how to react to Basyouni's statements. They informed him of the date of the meeting and called on him to attend, clarify what he had said and if necessary apologise for his statements. El-Basyouni failed to show up, along with his supporters who occupy the seven remaining seats on the club's board, leaving the seven reformist judges no choice but to delay the meeting until 2 February, the regular date for the monthly meeting of the board council. According to Ahmed Mekki, a leading member of the Alexandria Judges Club, their absence was due to the fact that they differed on how to react to the current crisis. "While two of them were ready to question El-Basyouni the remaining five were against taking such a measure," Mekki told Al-Ahram Weekly. These five signed a rival memorandum calling for both Mekki and Bastawisi to be questioned over statements recently published in the independent Al-Dostour newspaper in favour of the European Parliament resolution which sharply criticised Egypt's human rights record. It was an attempt, suspect many, to distract judges' attention away from El-Basyouni's statements. El-Basyouni, chief justice of the Qena Court of Appeals, was elected as chair of the Alexandria Judges Club in elections held earlier this month. Widely rumoured to enjoy the support of Justice Minister Mamdouh Marei, he ousted reformist judge Mahmoud El-Khodeiri, leader of the campaign for greater judicial independence, winning 569 votes to El-Khodeiri's 535. Following his success, El-Basyouni hurried to deny any connection with official circles.
