THE Shura Council (the Upper House of Egypt's Parliament) on Sunday urged the State Council to reconsider a recent vote barring women from ruling in the influential court, which advises the Government. “The Shura Council supports women's right to be appointed as judges according to the Constitution,” Safwat el-Sherif, the Council's Chairman, said. “This right is based on efficiency as a criterion, not the gender, colour or religion.” The State Council's General Assembly last week voted by an overwhelming majority against appointing women as judges in the council. Three-hundred and eighty judges took part in the General Assembly and voted, with 334 rejecting the appointment of females to judicial posts and 42 agreeing, with four abstentions. Egypt's Supreme Judicial Council, which has jurisdiction over criminal and civil courts, selected 31 women in 2007, who were later appointed by presidential decree. The recent ban has angered prowomen groups in Egypt. “I would like to express my concern about this ban,” Egypt's Minister of Population and Family told the Shura Council. She added that the issue was more crucial than the Judiciary. “It is pertaining to the constitutional rights, citizenship and the principle of equal opportunities,” she said. Describing the decision as ill-timed, Khattab noted that the ban was made while Egypt's human rights report was reviewed in Geneva. “More worrisome still is that this decision was made by the State Council, which spearheaded the campaign to empower women in 1951.” According to Mohamed Ragab, a member of the ruling party, the ban came as a shock to the nation. “Society has struggled for the empowerment of women, who have established themselves in public,administrative and constitutional prosecution areas,” he said. “But the recent ban makes us look strange in the world.”
