Lawyers stepped up their protests on Tuesday, holding a demonstration outside the Lawyers Syndicate and blocking Ramses Street in downtown Cairo. Meanwhile, more than 2000 lawyers shut down the North Cairo and Badrashein courts and prevented judges from entering, claiming that judges are trying to impose the new judicial authority law on their syndicate. “They must cancel Article 18 of the law and hold free syndicate elections,” said Mohamed Ghorab, a protester. During the protests, the lawyers clashed with colleagues from the Muslim Brotherhood group, including Mohamed Kamel, who is running for syndicate president, accusing them of having their own agenda within the syndicate. In an attempt to resolve the crisis, the Supreme Judicial Council asked the lawyers to present their proposed amendments to the new law and promised to study them carefully. The lawyers say the new draft law that the judges are pushing for contains unfair ways of dealing with them, granting judges the right to order the imprisonment of lawyers during court sessions if they object to their decisions, or fine them up to LE10,000. Former syndicate president Sameh Ashour accused the judicial committee supervising the syndicate elections of deliberately postponing them so as to exclude the syndicate from ongoing discussions on the new draft law. Translated from the Arabic Edition
