The Egyptian Judges Club sent yesterday a statement to its members who have not paid their monthly subscriptions yet. The statement urges them to do so quickly and warns them that they will be expelled from the club if they do not comply. As a result, they will lose all their rights, including those to vote and run as candidates in the next elections. Over the past few days, the number of members who have paid their subscriptions has risen to 7,200 out of 10,400. As a result, the members who risk losing their membership are more than 3,000. The statement, signed by the club chairman Zakaria Abdel Aziz, says the remaining members have until the end of November to pay their subscriptions. "What we care for is the judges' and their club's interest against conspirators" as he describes them. Abdel Aziz stresses that those who will not have paid after the deadline will be expelled from the club and will have the chance to be re-accepted only with the approval of the club's board of directors. If they re-join the club, they will re-gain the right to vote only after two years, he adds. The chairman says in the statement: "We know sedition has turned apart many civil society foundations, both parties and syndicates. We also know how sedition has been sparked, who planned it and who fell into this trap. We also know the problems experienced by our club in the past and let us hope it will not undergo them again." He affirms no one has ever said that setting monthly subscriptions is included in the statute, mentioning as a proof the fact that several general assemblies have been held at the club without their quorum being reached. Yet, amendments have been made to the statute, like the one on January 22, 1990, he goes on to say. He then adds that after that, Counselor Mokbel Shaker won the club presidency and amended Article 13, thus excluding the president from those whose name is chosen by lot. However, he says no explicit written decision in this regard has ever been taken by the club's board of directors or has been submitted to the general assembly. Instead, this amendment has become an accepted convention among judges and has been abided by. "Will the conspirators let the current president put forward his own candidacy and run in the next elections or will they adopt double standards?" he wonders. "After all, they may say that the statute has not been amended, as the quorum was not reached at the assembly which approved the proposal to limit the president's mandates to two."
