The heads of the Supreme Constitutional Court, the Court of Cassation, the State Council and the State Judicial Authority were sworn in on Wednesday morning before President Hosni Mubarak at the Presidential Palace in Heliopolis. The day before yesterday the President had issued a decree appointing Chancellor Farouk Ahmed Sultan Mikki as President of the Supreme Constitutional Court, Chancellor Adel Abdel Hamid Abdallah as President of the Court of Cassation as of July 1, Chancellor Mohamed Ahmed el-Husseini Abdel Meguid Mossalam as Head of the State Council as of July 8, and Chancellor Sedki Abdel Rahman Kholousi as Head of the State Judicial Authority. In another context, anger and resentment among judges have escalated at the draft law that was submitted by Chancellor Mamdouh Marei, the Minister of Justice, on restructuring the Supreme Judicial Council by including the presidents of the North and South Cairo Courts in its board, in addition to the presidents of the Mansoura and Ismailia Appeal Courts.
The Alexandria Judges Club issued a statement signed by Chancellor Ismail Bassiouni, the president of the club, criticizing the draft law, and considering it as being contrary to the principle of judicial independence. The statement asked President Mubarak to thwart the draft in order to preserve the independence of the judiciary. The Beni Suef Judges Club called for an emergency general assembly of all judges of Egypt on Tuesday. It called on all judges to ‘rally' against Marei's draft law, which he had submitted by presidential decree and not by law, asking to include new members in the Supreme Judicial Council's board, and bringing the total number of the board members to 11 instead of 7. It said that including the heads of the courts of first instance to the Judicial Council detracts from the independence of the council, as they are aides of the minister, according to the Law of the Judiciary.
Informed judicial sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm that the Beni Suef Judges Club called for an emergency general assembly when the meeting that was held by the Egypt Judges Club board failed to bring the judges to an emergency general assembly at their club. The club sufficed with a statement signed by Chancellor Ahmed el-Zend, the president of the club.
