CAIRO: As their sit-in enters its ninth day, the Ministry of Justice's legal specialists are threatening to go on hunger strike if their demands are not met. Over 300 specialists are holding a sit-in in front of the ministry, demanding legal protection and better work conditions. They had previously called for an amendment to Law 96/1952 as well as the cancellation of a decision that allows them to examine cases only inside the courtroom. Meanwhile, for the first time since the sit-in began, the ministry issued a press statement explaining the rationale behind the new decisions and refuting specialists' allegations of low pay. "The fact that the law dates back to 1952 isn't enough reason for a strike; most civil and criminal laws were issued in the 30s and 40s, Hassan Abdel Razek, assistant minister for legal specialists and forensic affairs said in the statement. Abdel Razek said new legislation pertaining to specialists is being prepared based on a draft law presented by the legal specialists department that "only reached the ministry on July 1 and is to be presented to the People's Assembly. The statement further explained that the decision forcing the specialists to only examine cases inside the courtroom stemmed from repeated incidents of lost and damaged documents due to an ailing filing system at their offices. The statement added that the decision to move a case into the hands of a specialist would take over six months because of complicated bureaucratic procedures which delayed a lot of cases. The new decision leaves specialists with three options: either examining documents in the specialist's office inside the court; acquiring a photocopy of all documents; or permission from the court for the original documents. "According to recent statistics, the number of cases referred to specialists reached 255,000 which is the main reason for slowing down the legal procedures, Abdel Razek said. "When one of the conflicting parties wants to delay the final ruling in a case, he brings up technical issues to guarantee that it is referred to a specialist and consequently remains under investigation maybe for years, he added. However, specialists disagreed, saying that the new decisions are illegal and unconstitutional and they were not consulted when it was issued. "They came up with this new law just to make their new decision legal, Walid Badawy, spokesperson of the protestors told Daily News Egypt. "We are against the execution of these decisions, the ministry has an obvious intention of affiliating us with court heads rather than the ministry, he added. A statement issued by the protestors challenged the ministry to prove that any files have been lost by a specialist. Badawy said that forcing the specialists to examine documents and giving their professional opinion immediately inside the court would "constrain them and prevent them from expressing their opinion freely. He was referring to a ministerial decision to have specialists at preliminary courts give their opinions immediately in cases that don't require special procedures. The number of specialists participating in the sit-in, according to Badawy, reached 1,500 yesterday while the ministry's statement estimated them to be 150. Abdel Razek said that specialists receive 325 percent of their salaries in the form of permanent financial incentives, as well as a night shift incentive and an incentive for every case solved, "making the average income of a specialist between LE 4,000 and 7,000. According to Badawy, however, a specialist receives LE 850 as a basic salary only if he handles five cases a month, otherwise he receives LE 500 as well as LE 350 for morning shifts and LE 800 for night shifts. "The maximum salary a specialist can get is LE 2,000 given that he works day and night and after 25 years, the most he can get is LE 3,000, he said. "The administrative employee working with me gets LE 1,500 although he barely works two hours a day, Badawy said. Three thousand legal specialists are employed at the Ministry of Justice, they handle civil and trade cases by giving their technical opinion on which the judge bases the final verdict.
