CAIRO - A showdown between lawyers and judges over a new Judicial Authority bill is getting more intense a short time after hundreds of lawyers announced an open-ended strike, bringing work in some of the nation's courts to a halt. The lawyers staged protests outside several courthouses, including the Northern Cairo Court, against the new law and threatened more escalatory measures if articles in the law, deemed by them to be humiliating, are not cancelled, prompting a response from the Minister of Justice Mohamed Abdel Aziz Al Guindy who lashed out at the lawyers for stopping work in the courts. "Lawyers have the right to object, but they do not have the right to stop work in the courts," Al Guindy said. The lawyers cancelled a march to the premises of the ruling military council in the north of Cairo Saturday, but said they would take other measures to make their opposition to the bill known to everybody. They say the new law, which gives judges the right to put them behind bars as they do their work, will weaken them and also make them incapable of doing their work properly. "This law means that judges can put us in jail if they do not like the defence we make in the courts," Salah Salem, a lawyer, told The Egyptian Gazette. The judges, however, say the law is necessary in the light of the chaos that has come to haunt the nation's courts after the revolution, which brought about an almost total collapse for this country's security system. "Our courts are very chaotic," said Justice Ahmed Mekki, one of the masterminds of the new law. "If the judges do not have the power to bring order to the courts, our judicial system will collapse," he added in a previous interview with this newspaper. Judges' Club leaders met on Friday and said they too would halt work in the nation's courts until security went back to these courts. Secretary General of the club, Justice Mahmoud Al Sherif, said the board of the club would continue to convene until the courts get the necessary security. Referring to lawyers who attacked some courts over the past few days, Al Sherif insisted that these lawyers be brought to court. "All escalatory possibilities are open until our demands are met," Al Sherif said. The intensifying crisis between the lawyers and the judges has got the ruling military council involved. A military council official told local media on Friday that the disputed law was not presented to the council for approval yet. The source added that the law was still being considered.Even with this, tens of lawyers have threatened to stage an open-ended sit-in inside the Appeals Court next Monday to protest against the new law. The Bar Association is due to host a meeting of association leaders on the same day to discuss the measures they should take if the judges go ahead with their law. But this seems to be making the Justice Minister angrier. He threatened to take punitive measures against those who hinder Egypt's justice system.
