In a swift move to face what they described as arbitrary instructions by Justice Minister Mamdouh Marie against them, the experts of the Ministry of Justice have decided to organize a protest on June 17 before the Justice Ministry general headquarter. They are going to protest against the decision of Counselor Intisar Nasim, judicial inspection assistant, to forbid lawsuits from being sent to the department of experts and to entrust every expert with going to the courts to look at those lawsuits. The decision also states that all the lawsuits sent to the Department of Experts shall be sent back. More than 100 experts representing expert offices nationwide held an emergency meeting at the Commerce Club headquarters in Cairo. They discussed their options to stand up to the ministry officials who insist on implementing this resolution which they say runs contrary to the law. Immediately after the meeting, the experts issued a statement bearing their signature and entitled [Statement by the experts of the Ministry of Justice]. In the statement they said that Hussein Zaki, the head of the department of experts at the ministry, has already submitted his resignation but it has been refused by Counselor Hassan Abdel Razeq, Assistant Minister, in the hope to solve the crisis. According to the statement, Zaki hinted he would send his resignation by mail. This confirms what Al-Masry Al-Youm printed on Thursday about that episode. Zaki, though, had denied submitting his resignation, saying in a statement: "We indeed have remarks on the recent decree about the organization of the work at the department of experts and we have informed the ministry leaders of that. Talks with them are still underway." Meanwhile, some experts said pressures have been put on Zaki not to resign so that the situation does not go out of control, yet they said they expected him to be sacked after calm has been restored as he stood up to ministry leaders and tried to resign. They also said they were thinking about not working altogether if their protest fails to lead to the revocation of the decree.
The Assistant Minister had held a meeting last Wednesday with the heads of expert offices nationwide to restore calm, but he told them he could not revoke the decree which aims to eliminate the misuse or loss of lawsuits, he said. The experts stressed that the Ministry's decree runs contrary to Article 51 of the decree in the Law No. 96 of 1952 about regulating expertise before judicial bodies. They also stressed that the decree has been issued to punish the experts for their recent stances, such as the crisis with three Justice Ministry experts from Sohag who were sentenced to jail because of the nature of their work and then were acquitted by the Court of Appeal. Those experts had also refused any interference in their work and claimed their legitimate rights, especially protection from the oppression of influential opponents. Al-Masry Al-Youm was the only newspaper which printed the decree on June 7 which sparked the latest crisis between the experts and the Minister.
