Transparency International Ranks Egypt among Worst Corrupt Legal Systems

Transparency International Ranks Egypt among Worst Corrupt Legal Systems

The Transparency International Organization has ranked Egypt among the worst countries as much as judicial systems are concerned.
 
The organization confirmed in its annual report about the administrative and legislative performance in about 100 countries, issued later last month, that Egypt is suffering from a legal corruption and executive authority”s intervention in the judiciary work.
 
The report is laid down by a group of UN legal experts, civil society agencies and former World Bank advisors. It demanded the Egyptian government to curb the wide-spread legal corruption, work for reaching a judicial independence and to protect the public prosecution from the government authority .
 
The report confirmed that democracy will never take effect in Egypt so long as the government refuses to give the judiciary a full independence, and so long as it intervenes in picking up the attorney general .
 
An official source in the Judges” Club confirmed that the government refused a bill law submitted by the club aiming at a full independence of judiciary authority from the executive authority like the US system that authorizes the Supreme Court to run judicial affairs.
 
The source confirmed that the government was about to address some demands of the club in 2006, but it backpedaled and issued the law of extending retirement age of the judges although the Judges” Club general assembly rejected it. The source confirmed also that the government amended the law of legal procedures last June  to allow the Justice Minister to intervene in the judiciary works with establishing circuits in the Courts of Appeals to seize the power of the Court of Cassation, the highest judicial body, under the pretext of the accumulation of cases.
 
Councilor Hisham Al Bastawisi said in press statements that the government doesn”t want an independent judicial system, and plans to ignore recommendations of the Judges” Club.
 
On the other hand, councilor Mahmoud Al Khodairi, the head of the Alexandria”s Judges” Club, rejected in a statement to Ikhwanweb that legal texts become the only guarantee for the judicial independence. He stressed that the judicial reform process must be accompanied by a full reform process in the country, so that the judge”s fairness takes effect in a wider environment of fairness in the society.
 
Al Khodairi added:” We must work for the independence of the conscience of the judges, not only through texts, to guarantee that these texts are activated and are freed of the daily social and political pressures facing ordinary citizens.
 
Judicial sources feared that the Transparency International”s reports may be exploited to impose international sanctions on Egypt and other Third World countries, that ignore anti-corruption criteria in their legal systems.
 
The US House has proposed a bill last June, 21st, of blocking $200mln in annual aid to Egypt till it improves its exercises towards human rights and judicial independence. The US Senate”s appropriators approved the aid till a final decision around the cuts is issued by end of this year.
 
Transparency International”s report mentions that citizens pay bribes in more than 25 countries so as to reach their fair rights through courts . It pointed out that bribery and political blackmailing led to the erosion of the social system and the emergence of a judicial system for the poor and another one for the rich.
 
The report pointed to the spread of bribes among employees at the Courts of First Instance in several countries under covert claims of tips and loss of case papers.
 
It explained that some countries exercise pressures on judges through transferring them to remote areas, moving them from sensitive cases, appointing inefficient judicial officials, employing them in unsafe working conditions and with low salaries.