CAIRO: The Higher Judicial Council has rejected a request from the vice president of the Cairo Appeals Court, Hisham Al-Bastawisy, to travel to Belgium to observe a trial and a European Commission conference to which he was invited. His proposed trip would have involved attending the international trial of several Israeli soldiers accused of committing war crimes in Lebanon and the Palestinian territories, as well as the European Commission Conference, Al-Bastawisy told Daily News Egypt. The European Commission conference will be held on Feb. 9, while the court trials are scheduled on Feb. 20. According to Al-Bastawisy, the Higher Judicial Council's decision to reject his request to attend the events stem from the Higher Judicial Council's fear that he will take a stance opposed to that of the government. This decision, Al-Bastawisy added, "is a living example of the strategy that the Council has been adopting for so many years now. "The Higher Judicial Council's role is to work on behalf of the executive authority and to promote all its decisions and stands, Al-Bastawisy said, adding that the council's decision also implements the government's strategy to control the judicial authority and to "ensure that the Egyptian legal system is not independent. "And that is why we [the free judges] have been calling for the Higher Judicial Council's members to be chosen by free elections and not by government appointment, Al-Bastawisy added. He added that judges from the entire world were invited to attend the Israeli soldiers' war crimes trials. Prohibiting Al-Bastawisy from travel means that Egypt will not be represented in the trials, since no other judge can go on his behalf because the invitation was personal. Al-Bastawisy said that a constitutional law in Egypt prevents any judge from traveling anywhere without previous permission from the Higher Judicial Council.
