CAIRO: An Egypt court has overturned a ministry of justice ruling that had given the military junta and police the right to arrest and detain civilians without charge. The ruling, which said the decree issued ahead of the presidential run-off on June 16-17, is a setback to the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, who had hoped their series of decrees would give them unprecedented power in the country. It also comes as Egypt's newly elected President Mohamed Morsi is busy preparing his new cabinet ahead of his swearing in later this month. The decree had been challenged by activists and lawyers, who said the military junta was attempting to implement draconian laws similar to the emergency laws that ruled the country for decades, but which expired at the end of May. “The court has blocked the decision of the Minister of Justice that gave military and military intelligence officers powers of arrest,” said Cairo administrative court Judge Ali Fikry. Despite the ruling, activists part of the No Military Trials group began to question what will happen to the approximately 16,000 Egyptian civilians who have been detained since the fall of the former government of Hosni Mubarak on February 11, 2011. “What about the others? What about the 16,000 who remain in jail without trial or charge,” wrote one activist on Twitter after the court ruling was made public.
