CAIRO: President of the legal specialists club, Mohamed Daher Hussein, pledged in a meeting with protesting legal specialists Saturday night that the ministry will soon issue official executive decisions regarding a new incentives policy that was previously agreed on. Hussein also said that the justice ministry will make a final decision regarding obligatory appointments at courtrooms and periodic book number eight that specialists say, if issued, they will suspend their open sit-in. We accepted a suggestion to include the new fiscal policy and work conditions in the new law to be debated in the upcoming parliamentary session so that the ministry wouldn't think that we are only demanding more money, said Mahmoud El-Qobeisy, a member of the negotiations delegation and head of Alexandria s legal specialists authority. El-Qobeisy added that decisions regarding the periodic book and obligatory appointments are urgent and fundamental for any resolution. Specialists are demanding the cancellation of periodic book number eight which allows them to examine case files only inside the courtroom. They are also calling for an amendment to Law 96/1952 as well as better pay and work conditions. According to El-Qobeisy, the ministry s anticipated decisions would allow specialists to receive an official photocopy of the case documents and original copies to be sent to them if necessary. Regarding the obligatory appointment at courtrooms, protestors and the ministry agreed that it would last for one year only and that specialists reports would come under the supervision of the head of the specialists office. Protestors argued that obligatory appointments and giving recommendations in cases orally and instantly inside a courtroom would lead to inaccuracy and lack of confidence since they won t be supervised by any authority. El-Qobeisy said that specialists will postpone their sit-in until the new parliamentary session in November, if the ministry delivers the promises that Daher made. In Cairo on the first day of Ramadan last Saturday, 1,500 legal specialists organized an iftar in front of the justice ministry. It included their wives, children and mothers, some of whom had traveled from distant cities like Luxor and Arish. The protesting specialists were joined by MPs Mostafa Bakry, Saad Aboud, Mohamed Abdel-Aleem and Mohamed Dawoud, who expressed their solidarity with the protestors and full recognition of their demands. Bakry pledged that he would introduce the new specialists law to the People Assembly as soon as possible. Before Iftar, board member of the lawyers syndicate Mohamed El Damaty organized a press conference to convey lawyers solidarity with the protesting specialists. An invitation and flower bouquet were sent to minister of justice Mamdouh Marei, Boules Hanna, assistant minister for administrative affairs, and Hassan Abdel Razek, assistant minister for specialists and forensic affairs. According to El-Qobeisy, none of them showed up.
