CAIRO: Chairman of Egypt's ruling military council, Hussein Tantawi and Prime Minister Essam Sharaf are the main cause of the dispute between lawyers and judges, the Bar Association presidential candidate, Mukhtar Nouh said. The cause of the expanding gap between lawyers and judges is the silence of Tantawi and Sharaf, he said in a phone call to TV talk show Mahatat Masr. The dispute between both sides settled down in Article 18 of the Judicial Authority Bill, which empowers judges to punish lawyers who violate the court system with imprisonment, regardless of extenuating circumstances or immunity. During the past few days, lawyers staged several demonstrations against judges, calling for judicial purging.