Egypt’s Highest Court Joins Strike against Mursi

Local Editor

Egypt's highest court has joined a judicial rebellion against President Mohammed Mursi by declaring an open-ended strike on the day it was supposed to rule on the legitimacy of two key assemblies controlled by the President allies.

The strike announced Sunday by the Supreme Constitutional Court and opposition plans to march on the presidential palace on Tuesday take the country's latest political crisis to a level not seen in the nearly two years of turmoil since former President Hosni Mubarak's toppling.
Judges from the country's highest appeals court and its sister lower court were already on an indefinite strike, joining colleagues from other tribunals who suspended work last week to protest what they saw as Mursi's assault on the judiciary.

The last time Egypt had an all-out strike by the judiciary was in 1919, when judges joined an uprising against British colonial rule.
The standoff began when Mursi issued decrees on Nov. 22 giving him near-absolute powers that granted himself and the assembly drafting the new constitution immunity from the courts.

The constitutional panel then raced in a marathon session last week to vote on the charter's 236 clauses. The fast-track hearing pre-empted a decision from the Supreme Constitutional Court that was widely expected to dissolve the constituent assembly.
The judges on Sunday postponed their ruling on that case just before they went on strike.
The Judges Club, a union with 9,500 members, said late Sunday that judges would not, as customary, oversee the national referendum Mursi called for Dec. 15 on the draft constitution hammered out and hurriedly voted on last week.

The absence of their oversight would raise more questions about the validity of the vote. If the draft is passed in the referendum, parliamentary elections are to follow two months later and they too may not have judicial supervision.

The judges say they will remain on strike until Mursi rescinds his decrees, which the Egyptian leader said were temporary and needed to protect the nation's path to democratic rule.
Supporters of Mursi, who hails from the Muslim Brotherhood, accuse the court's judges of being loyal to Mubarak, who appointed them, and accuse them of trying to derail Egypt's transition to democratic rule.
In addition to the high court's expected ruling Sunday on the legitimacy of the constitution-drafting panel, it was also expected to rule on another body dominated by Mursi supporters, parliament's upper chamber.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by moqawama.org