Egyptian Judges call on the government to stop breaking of the law

For his part, Chancellor Zakaria Abdel Aziz, Egypt ‘s former President of the Court of Appeal and Chief of the Judges’ Club called the ruling regimen to put a new constitution by judges, legal scholars and specialists to avoid the defects that completely distorted the current Constitution.

He also called for the abolition of 50% of the assembly seats for workers and peasants of the elected councils after it was exploited badly in passing infamous legislation and to re-consider article 76 with regard to electing the President of the republic.

Chancellor Zakaria Abdel Aziz

Chancellor Abdel Aziz warned of the continued exclusion of judges and experts about the formulation of laws, indicating that this situation resulted in a number of infamous laws that were revised after a week of its approval such as personal status law.

Councilor Abdul Aziz called for adjustments challenging the current Constitution in front of the Supreme Constitutional Court , affirming that the constitutional legitimacy is the only way the legal system must be conducted by and the judicial reform is the basis of Egypt ‘s political reform.

He called to end non-judicial presence in a court of the political parties, emphasizing that they are now politicized and are contrary to world’s general principles of law that permitted the establishment of parties by courts rather than intact by the government.

The prominent jurist Dr. Rabie Fath Al-bab, professor of constitutional law at Ain Shams University, underlined the need to supervise the constitutionality of the nation’s laws because the lack of its presence enabled the legislative and executive authority of breaching the Constitution in many cases with no response from anyone something made us encounter unconstitutional or invalid legal system.

He noted that the control of the Constitutional Court of Egypt affected by cultural and political circumstances, Fath Al-bab said, pointing out that tribunal is continually subjected to political interference has made control of laws restricted and incomplete.

He stressed that the amendment to article 76 of the Constitution is a clear and blatant abuse of the legislative process regarding the basic principles of common law and jammed in the legal status of any independent judicial body for the disputes concerning the application.

He denounced a text of the article stipulates that decision of presidential election commission, headed by the Constitutional Court is final and not subject to further appeal even though it is not judicial, and contrary to Article 68 of the Constitution, which prohibits immunity of administrative decisions from judiciary control.

Dr. Rabei Fath Al-Bab

He explained that the presidential decree disclosed the risks of misuse or even abuse of president’s powers in issuing decrees that had the force of law, without regard to conflicts that may arise of these resolutions, principles and the constitutional guarantees.

Fath Al-Bab called for increasing number of members of the Constitutional Court to be decided quickly in cases tried before the judiciary and constitutional challenges and the need to reconsider and amend the current Constitution.

Dr. Yousry Mohamed El-Assar, Professor of public law at College of Law , Cairo University , asserted that Egypt ‘s Supreme Constitutional Court , in many times, succeed despite all the obstacles that has dogged its role in pursuing an effective role in protecting of the human rights and fundamental freedoms.

Dr. Al-Assar demanded to support the Court’s role in protecting the individual’s right to participate in public activities and others of public freedoms, and endorsement of some critical amendments to certain Articles of the Constitution and full texts of the legislation.

He also suggested that the Constitutional Court should be entitled to judge constitutionality of the constitutional amendments relating to public rights and freedoms in order not to be tolerated against it or curtailed especially after it witnessed a retreat from those adjustments with regard to amending Article 77 of the Egyptian Constitution in 1980 to allow for an open-ended presidential terms instead of limiting them to two as well as the amendment of Article 76 took place twice in 2005 and 2007 as new conditions placed for other candidates not belong to the ruling party.

He also called to give the jurisdiction to hear appeals relating to the status and validity of MPs alone by the Constitutional Court and also prior control over the constitutionality and legality of the Parliament’s Regulations as is the case in many countries such as France .

Al-Assar called for easing restrictions on the exercise of fundamental, legislative rights and public freedoms, provided sufficient notice prior to the freedom to establish political parties, newspapers and associations with the need to subject these institutions to judicial control alone rather than being granted prior authorization by the government, which is a severe constraint upon the exercise of freedoms.

Dr. Assar called upon the Constitutional Court to revive its former policy on the operationalization of the first judicial examination of legal texts submitted by people who have jurisdiction and authorized to file lawsuits such as lawyers in a special law and must be put into effect for judges in another special law either.