Judges Turn to President Mubarak to Intervene

The confrontation between the Judges Union and the pro-government Supreme Judiciary Council escalated when the union’s chairman sent a memo to President Hosny Mubarak calling on him to reprimand the chairman of the Judiciary Council for his defamatory statements on judges in general and on the four under-investigation justices in particular.
 
The memo marks a profound shift in the strategy of the union which tried to keep the political administration away from the judiciary affaires. However, the growing opposing stances of Justice Minister and his bias in favor of the council forced the union to resort to the president. Nevertheless, judiciary sources ruled out that the memo may influence the government attitude towards judges. 
 
On his part, the union’s deputy Nagy Derbalah asserted that the government spares no pressing cards to make judges yield to the council-made amendments of the judiciary power bill. In addition, he criticized the state of secrecy imposed on the memos of referring the four justices to investigations and on the findings of probe into the assaults on monitoring judges in the parliamentary polls.