The spectacular death scene of the isolated Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi in a square of the “Egyptian judiciary” had a painful tragic rhythm. The arenas that students of law and law have long studied as a place to establish justice and protect the oppressed and the shelter of the weak from the oppression of power transformed with the rhythm of the tones of “Mohamed Morsi” that begged Just reviewing his health and his meals into dark and troubling fear spaces.
The Egyptian judiciary, despite the multiple authoritarian breakthroughs, had been a space for the Egyptian opposition for 30 years to respond to the violations of the administrative and security authority, and as long as the system was carrying out arrests and detachments of dissidents, then the matter would end up in the courtyards, and the judiciary was increasingly seen as an area where authority could be confronted before the events of the January revolution, Especially with the judges entering the battle of independence against the defeat of the Mubarak state.
The question now remains with the scene of the first elected president's death before the eyes of the court. How did the Egyptian judiciary - with this radicalism - turn from an arena of opposition to an absolute tool of oppression and oppression?
On May 12 of 2003, the first circuit of the Egyptian Court of Cassation, which consisted of Chancellor Hossam El Gharyani, Abdel Rahman Heikal, Mohamed Sheta and Hisham El Bastawisi and Rifaat Hanna, issued a ruling invalidating the results of the People's Assembly elections that were held on November 8, 2000 in the Department of Division Olives in Cairo according to appeals 959 and 949 for the year 2000, and the winner at the time of the categories seat in that district was Zakaria Azmi, head of the Presidential Court, and assistant secretary of the dissolved National Party. (1)
This ruling was like the first crack in the wall of the corrupt Mubarak state, whose roof will later be filled with cracks, which will culminate with the "independence of the judges" protests joined by a large number of activists, politicians and protest movements in the Egyptian street, forming the wave of protest movement that escalated, paving the way. January revolution beginning of 2011.
However, despite the presence of the "independence of the judges" trend at the heart of the Egyptian revolution, and beyond, the matter will be turned upside down beginning in 2012, when the statements of the president of the Judges Club, "Ahmed Al-Zind", which are hostile to the revolution in general and the Muslim Brotherhood and the authority of the former president, began to appear. Mohamed Morsi "in particular, and the Supreme Constitutional Court began conducting an anti-state behavior and attempting to obstruct it explicitly, until it ended with the participation of a number of judges and some judicial institutions, in the military coup movement, and then installed Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi as a military general over Egypt, ruling it with iron and fire And the judicial and legislative cover allowed him to do what he wanted in terms of isolation, killing, witchcraft, and arresting, and eliminating the principles and demands for which the January revolution occurred. How can we understand the position of the judges in the political arena? How was their role effective in the reality that we live today in Egypt and the Arab world, which in turn was affected by the military coup and the clear violations of the constitution and the law that occurred in Egypt?
The decision of Counselor Hossam Al-Gharyani and Hisham Al-Bastawisy and their colleagues ended with a “report on the invalidity of the contested elections.” These judges rejected the counselor Fathi's successor, then-President of the Court of Cassation, in their decision in defense of the independence of the judiciary. Asked to reconsider the two appeals, the committee replied to Khalifa, saying: “There is no capacity for the president of the court to comment on it or dictate a specific path for investigation, or direct the department or one of its members regarding it.” (1), and skirmishes began between the Mubarak regime and its state and between judicial institutions In heat, until the 2005 parliamentary elections.
The 2005 elections saw the arrival of an unprecedented percentage of the Muslim Brotherhood in the Egyptian history, reaching 88 seats. The majority of these seats were decided in the first round on the seventh and eighth of November. While the regime used violence in the following rounds to prevent the Brotherhood from achieving a huge proportion that embarrass the National Party and reveal the truth of its weak popularity (2), according to Dr. Al-Mufakir Azmi Bishara, the Mubarak regime, in collusion with some of the judges overseeing the electoral process, rigged the results of a number of constituencies to prevent the Brotherhood's candidates from reaching In large proportions to parliament, however, the only official party that revealed this fraud was the "judiciary."
After the end of the parliamentary elections, the Egyptian newspapers published a testimony from within the judiciary that turned the political balances at the time (3). The newspapers published the testimony of Chancellor Noha Al-Zaini, deputy head of the Administrative Prosecution Authority, regarding flagrant abuses that occurred during her participation in the judicial supervision of the parliamentary elections in the Bandar district Damanhour in November 2005, and rigging the election results in favor of the candidate of the ruling National Party at the time "Mustafa al-Faqi" at the expense of the Brotherhood candidate "Dr. Jamal Heshmat", and in that testimony warned al-Zaini of what she called the "flat judiciary" saying: "Unfortunately, Those who were not intimidated by Saif Al-Mu’ez, their will is lax in their gold, allowances, rewards, and mandates in the executive branch, whereby everyone sits or stands as subordinates to executive ministers who are flattened by their directives, anxious not to lose attractive material gains, and they replace them with their independence, generosity, and suspicion. ” (4)
Which the "independence of the judiciary movement" came out to emphasize, and topping the scene on its basis. The Judges Club movement had started on May 13, 2005, with a large number of judges gathering to deliberate on their supervision of the referendum on amending Article 76 of the Constitution, according to which the election of the President of the Republic in Egypt would move from the referendum to direct elections, and also regarding their supervision of elections. The President of the Republic and the parliamentary elections, and suspending all these posts if the authority does not issue its draft to amend the Judicial Authority Law, and other amendments to the Law on the Exercise of Political Rights, so that their supervision of the elections is complete, real, and effective, but the Egyptian regime, with its legislative and executive powers, has not been filled with these demands. (5)
This prompted the Judges Club to escalate its announcement during its General Assembly meeting that it would boycott overseeing the presidential election process, unless real guarantees were available for the integrity of the elections by issuing a law for the judiciary to guarantee its independence, but the excited judges re-edited their decision, in order not to miss the opportunity to move from the referendum method Until the direct election, however, the club confirmed during its extraordinary general assembly on September 2, 2005 that it does not bear any responsibility before Egyptian and international public opinion if it is not taken into conditions, the most important of which is the presence of observers from civil society organizations within the voting committees. (5)
The Judges Club was about to escalate to the highest degree with the regime, so he saw himself as representing a similar authority to that of the government and the President of the Republic itself, which is the third authority formed for the state after the executive and the legislative authority, and therefore, in an unprecedented step at least during the era of deposed President Hosni Mubarak, he called the club to The armed forces intervened to protect the judges during the second phase of the legislative elections in which security and "thugs" used force on the boxes, and although no one took this call seriously, they clearly reveal that since that period an impression has spread even among the judges that the army can balance The ruling party and internal security forces that use thugs (5), something that the "counter-revolution" forces reused again against the ousted president, "Mohamed Morsi."
In a new escalation step, after the elections, the Judges Club issued a report in which it revealed the legal violations of the electoral process, and that the participation rate did not exceed 5%, and not 50%, as announced by the official authorities. In the wake of this step, about 1500 judges were excluded from supervising the parliamentary elections that were held two months after the presidential elections, which were exposed by the testimony of Chancellor Noha Al-Zaini and the Judges Club came out criticizing her again, confirming the testimony of Al-Zaini (5). Indeed, Counselor Ahmed Makki and Mahmoud Makki stood Zakaria Abdul Aziz and Hussam Al-Gharyani and hundreds of sheikhs and their youths on the stairs of the High Court of Justice wore their medals, wrapped in a huge flag for Egypt, reaching a length of 30 meters, demanding the independence of the judiciary, and they stand the peer position of the entire political system. (6)
The political system clearly understood the message, so his action was revealed, expressing his response, where Mahmoud Makki and Hisham Al-Bastawisi were referred to the Powers Commission in preparation for their dismissal, after which Hussam Al-Gharyani, Yahya Jalal, Asim Abdul-Jabbar and Naji Derbala were referred to investigation in April 2006, as a punishment to them for their claim to the independence of the judiciary. (6) The battle had already flared, and there was no room for retreat, as these judges were clearly aware that any word or movement they were taking constituted a danger not only to the political system, but also to the internal structure and legal structure of the state, a battle in which two powers of powers clashed The Egyptian state, so the Judges Club announced that it had entered an open sit-in at its headquarters, and the smell of protest smelled, and the protest movements in the Egyptian street, whose role began to exacerbate at that time, were filled. (7)
In parallel to the sit-in of the Judges Club, demonstrations coincided with the trial sessions, and the "Kifaya" movement and its related groups and the Muslim Brotherhood joined forces with the sit-in judges, and a number of activities were organized in support of the judges' sit-in that started on April 18, 2006, and on the morning of April 19 In 2006, a group of young men, girls, intellectuals and activists joined the protest and held a sit-in in front of the Judges Club, distributed leaflets and carried banners supporting the sit-in and called on the Egyptian people to join them, and the chants of support for judges for independence appeared, and the demonstrators chanted: "Judges, judges, rid us of tyrants." And “There are judges in Egypt who fear nothing but God,” and “We judge with you ... the people of Egypt are all over you.” (7)
The political system at that time translated the sit-in of the judges and the protest groups around them protesting with a strong escalation, and on April 24, security forces surrounded the sit-in in large numbers, attacking the youth whose estimated number was only about 30 hours, and they seized their belongings and banners and arrested some, but most shockingly, The evidence that the political system is fed up with these judges is that a group of officers and police officers beat a number of judges when they left their club, including Judge Mahmoud Hamza, who was transferred to the hospital in a bad condition, after the attack on him and dragged him on the ground by breaking his arm . But the patch widened on the surface, as many political and trade union forces from the regions solidified with the judges and supported their demands and mobility. On April 26, 2006, the Judges Club received a delegation from the Delta governorates that includes representatives of the bar association, pharmacists and engineers, the Muslim Brotherhood, the delegation, assembly, and tomorrow. The next day, the judges, along with protesting protesters in the Bar and Journalists Syndicate, managed to march toward the Court of Cassation to protest against the first trial session of the advisers, Mahmoud Makki and Hisham Bastawisi, and in May 2006 the court issued a verdict of their innocence. (7)
The escalating confrontations between the judges and the regime continued until the Mubarak regime realized that the judicial order needed interference from within the judiciary itself and the disruption of the Judges Club bloc, which happened when the term of Chancellor Zakaria Abdel Aziz ended in the presidency of the Judges Club and the club held its elections on February 13, 2009, It was won by Chancellor Ahmed Al-Zind, who is affiliated with the Mubarak regime, with the support of the State Security and the National Party, and Ahmad Al-Zind himself who represented one of the poles of the counter-revolution in the transitional phase after the January revolution and during the era of Mohamed Morsi, who will have a prominent role in preparing the military coup.
After the January revolution and Mubarak stepped down from the presidency of the Republic and assigned him the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces to manage the affairs of the country, the Military Council took over all threads of power in Egypt, but it hindered the process of dismantling the system, because in the end it was part of it, the army did not repeal the emergency law imposed since 1981, nor He halted the trial of civilians in military courts, and the notorious security apparatus was not dismantled, but rather allied with the police to help him stabilize internal security. (8)
As for the democratic transition process, the military council was always able to control the results of the electoral processes, and before Mohamed Morsi took over the presidency of Egypt, the parliament was dissolved and a constitutional declaration was issued granting the military council legislative powers instead of parliament so that it does not transfer to the elected president, as it gave him the right The formation of a constitutional assembly, as well as the retention of all powers relating to the affairs of the armed forces (8), Azmi Bishara comments, saying: “That declaration made in August 2012 was like a military coup with legal formulation,” and the key to understanding this coup was “the Constitutional Court.” Supreme Court, "which issued a ruling to dissolve parliament based on the unconstitutionality of the electoral law, and approved the constitutional declaration of the Military Council.
The military council had acquired constitutional legitimacy by administering the transitional phase after the referendum on some amended constitutional articles that were held on the referendum on March 19, 2011, when the military abolished the 1971 constitution and issued a constitutional declaration governing the transitional phase by selecting 55 articles from the old constitution. The competencies of the Military Council gained legitimacy from this declaration, and they are transferred to the civilian institutions elected under it, and Chancellor Tariq Al-Bishri interprets this by saying: “The Military Council noted that the 1971 constitution would transfer authority from it to the parliament immediately after its election or before its election, because according to the provisions of this constitution, If the President of the Republic vacates his position or incapacitates a permanent incapacity to work, the Presidency of the People's Assembly temporarily assumes the presidency, and if the Assembly is dissolved, he is replaced by the President of the Constitutional Court. Therefore, he decides to prepare a constitutional declaration, and this decision responds to the jurisprudence of the revolution according to the aforementioned, depending on the fact that resulted from it. Actually the transfer of political power. " (8)
However, the trap in which the revolutionary and political forces fell is that they conducted the new political life after the January revolution under the umbrella of the old legal and constitutional structure, which was designed in favor of the old regime, and from here the Supreme Constitutional Court and the concerns of its office became a supreme hand over all political life events, explains Azmi Bishara That said: "The enactment of laws is the main tool for restricting the institutions of the old regime, including the judiciary that still exists on the structure made by Mubarak, and which will turn into a major administration in restricting and paralyzing elected bodies in preparation for their overthrow. An early battle began between the Council and the judiciary with its pro-regime part, In the forefront is Ahmed Al-Zind, head of the Judges Club, whose confrontations with Parliament escalated until the battle to dissolve the parliament, and then confronted President Mohamed Morsi. (8)
As a result of all these wrong actions committed by the political forces, the hand of the "independence of the judiciary" movement has become tied, with no power to maneuver, the political forces have cast all power in the court of the Military Council and the castle of the Supreme Constitutional Court, untouched by any change, while the revolutionary forces stood outside That stadium hitting its heads in its walls, even after the Supreme Constitutional Court on the fourteenth of June 2012 dissolved the elected People's Assembly, the only popularly elected body, no uprising against the court’s ruling occurred, and the people did not defend their elected authority according to their will, but rather The political forces were delighted with the decision because it came against their opponents from political Islam, which had the largest share in Parliament. (8)
As for the revolutionary forces and the Egyptian street, they spread the land as spectators, and their condition says: “The People's Assembly did not join the revolutionary effort to try Mubarak, nor did it put laws related to corrupting political life and tyranny, even though this was its first legislative duty, and it did not move in this regard until after the party proposed Freedom and justice were a presidential candidate. Then he placed the Political Isolation Law on his agenda, and it seemed that he was doing so with the aim of a party aiming to isolate his competitors ... He also tried to enact laws to change the structure of the Constitutional Court when it was discussing the legitimacy of the People's Assembly by discussing its electoral law. (8) Azmi Bishara adds: "One of the strange things in the People's Assembly is that he went on strike one week when he failed to bring down the ministry because he did not have the constitutional powers."
While the revolution means changing the system of government from outside the existing constitution, "There is no revolution in the world governing to a previous constitutional court, but rather it has to change the constitution, and this will not happen under the shadow of a constitutional court that protects the previous constitution and the old system and besides the tools of changing them and considers them illegal." The People's Assembly was preoccupied with party rivalry as if it were a ruling parliament in a long-established democracy. While the electoral processes were the carrot that the military council and the deep state of political forces cast, the Supreme Constitutional Court and its members were the dagger that the Mubarak regime stabbed the revolution several times, but the battle between the political forces, led by the Muslim Brotherhood by virtue of their assumption of power, and the Supreme Constitutional Court will burn to burn everyone .
What called the Supreme Constitutional Court to intervene and pass its ruling nullifying the election law and the illegality of Parliament was the political isolation law discussed by the People's Assembly sessions, which was proposing to prevent any former figure in the Mubarak regime from political work for 10 years, and the Constitutional Court and its members claimed that this is like Interfered with the principle of separation of powers, and constitutional jurists took advantage of this point to defend the Constitutional Court, and what made the position of the court and its supporters strong is the "constitutional right" that the court has to interfere in the decisions of the People's Assembly if it contradicts the principles of the constitution in a democratic system, and it already exists for this purpose That is, to interpret the constitution and protect it from the vagaries of the majority and minority, and attempts to override the principles of social contracting existing in the constitution on which the political system is based. (8)
But the question is which constitution does the Supreme Constitutional Court rule? And which constitution does the Parliament take for, which is controlled by the political Islam movement? Thinker Azmi Bishara comments, saying that the mouthpiece of constitutional jurists and political forces should have been: “We have no objection to the Constitutional Court interfering in the decisions of the People's Assembly, but not this Constitutional Court and not this constitution, and whoever has the right to control the work of the majority in a democratic parliament is A new democratic constitution expresses the values of the revolution, and a constitutional court committed to democratic values, not the values of the old system that the revolution was in order to change. (8)
And the Military Council and the Supreme Constitutional Court became the ones who held the core of the Egyptian state and the bridle of the political scene by controlling the right to make constitutional declarations or rulings that could block any political move or an elected body on the pretext of its unconstitutionality, for example on June 14, 2012 the Minister of Justice granted the military police and military intelligence the right Arrest of civilians (the Judicial seizure authority), and on the seventeenth of the same month, that is, after the presidential elections, and a few days before the results were announced, the Military Council issued a complementary constitutional declaration that included a number of articles that limit the powers of the new president who will win the elections, "and a text In Article 60 bis on the right of the military council to interfere in the formation of the Constituent Assembly, if something hinders its work ... and the right to veto the constitution, which means that the elected president will be an employee of the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. (8)
The thing that Chancellor Tariq Al Bishri commented on, saying: "Any constitutional declaration issued by the Military Council after the People's Assembly was convened on the 23rd of last January is lawless, and it is not even his right, after the Supreme Constitutional ruling, to issue an order related to the constitutional declaration, and he may not interfere with the amendment." Or abolish any constitutional or legal text that is organized for the remainder of the transitional period. ”On a question, is it permissible for the military council to reconstitute the Constituent Assembly for the constitution, he said:“ No, otherwise it would be contrary to the constitutional declaration that he issued, and the articles that the people consulted on March 19 / March". And it was rumored during that period that the new president would take an oath before the Supreme Constitutional Court or the Military Council in the absence of the People's Assembly. Al-Bishri said: “There is no text regulating the alliance in front of the court, nor will there be a description of the military council after the election of the president to take an oath before him. (9) But what happened is completely different.
Mr. Judge .. “You are in the dispute, and you are the opponent and the judgment.”
After Mohamed Morsi won the presidency, and contrary to the constitutional norms and everything that affects the revolution, the elected president took the oath on June 30, 2012 before the Supreme Constitutional Court, which had dissolved the elected parliament and clearly belonged to the Mubarak regime. However, on July 8, 2012, that is, a few days after taking office, Morsi issued Decision No. 11 of 2012 stipulating the reconvening of the People's Assembly that was dissolved by the Constitutional Court. (10)
But the venerable Constitutional Court had anticipated everyone and issued a ruling headed by Chancellor Maher Al-Buhairi, stopping the implementation of the President’s decision to restore the council. The political forces jumped with an air balloon with the banner “opposition” accusing Morsi of violating the authority and independence of the judiciary, and the military council appeared as a protector of the independence of the judiciary! The same thing was when Morsi issued a decision to dismiss the Public Prosecutor, so the judiciary was not preserved away from the revolutionary conflict, and transitional justice was not presented with an exceptional judiciary compatible with what the revolution brought to change in the old system, the legitimacy of the revolution, and through a process of radical change, and provoked this type of battle With the judiciary, without the presence of a transitional or revolutionary alternative, the jury of many jurists is abundant. (10) Especially the stream of judicial independence during the Mubarak era.
The matter developed into a confrontation between Mohamed Morsi and his supporters and the judiciary, especially the Supreme Constitutional Court and the Supreme Administrative Court, which issued on September 22, 2012 a ruling that the People’s Assembly would disappear with the force of law in light of the ruling of the Supreme Constitutional Court. (11) Morsi’s response was that he took advantage of the ruling of the Cairo Criminal Court on October 10, 2012, headed by Judge Hassan Abdullah, to absolve all of the defendants in the “Signature of the Camel” case, which occurred on February 2, 2011 in Tahrir Square. And the area around it, where peaceful demonstrators were killed, and the twenty-four political figure accused of having been linked to the previous regime and the National Party, and the decision was issued on the basis of "the court's lack of readiness in terms of sufficient evidence and contradictory statements." (12)
Morsi took advantage of this ruling, and issued two days after its issuance, that is, on October 12, 2012, a decision to dismiss the Public Prosecutor Abdel Majid Mahmoud and his appointment as ambassador to Egypt in the Vatican, and the decision came in the context of a constitutional declaration that includes the removal of Abdel Majid Mahmoud and the appointment of Talat Ibrahim in his place. It is the decision that turned the Egyptian street, the judges, even the independents of them, the opposition, the army, and most of the state institutions over Morsi, which gave the green signal to the counter revolution and the beginning of the arrangement for the military coup against Morsi and the January revolution as a whole.
Morsi's decision to dismiss Attorney General Abdul Majeed Mahmoud came in a highly polarizing atmosphere, and under the claim that the decision was unconstitutional and adhere to the independence of the judiciary, the Attorney General refused to respond to the decision, and announced that he was continuing his work, despite the fact that the request to dismiss “Abdul Majeed Mahmoud” was raised by the revolutionary forces in Tahrir Square. During the days of the January revolution and the demonstrations that followed, as soon as a decision was issued to isolate him, they joined the protesters of the decision, claiming that the decision was aimed at “the brotherhood of the prosecution,” and came to the public prosecutor’s visit to figures known to support the January revolution, such as Hamdeen Sabahi. (12)
But the thinker, Azmi Bishara, commented on the matter, saying: "In our opinion, this position was not based on individual courage, but rather was backed by the deep state apparatus. The president of the Judges Club, among the men of Mubarak's era, Ahmed Al-Zind, announced in an emergency meeting his solidarity with the dismissed deputy. It is worth noting that Al-Zind's position was not the first of its kind in its confrontation with the elected bodies, and it can be said that he was the spearhead inside the judiciary in the fight against democratic transformation, and it is indicated here that the judges had previously incited against the dissolved People's Assembly, considering it a thorn in the back of Egypt. (12)
As for Nathan Brown, he says: "Morsi resorted to a bold set of measures through which he sought to ignore the laws and procedures in place by changing the transitional constitutional system to suit his goals, and those measures benefited from the immunity granted to him by the 2012 constitution and prevented the possibility of challenging it, or At least this is what it looked like until a judicial body in the Cairo Court of Appeals charged with examining disputes related to members of the judiciary dismissed Morsi's decision to dismiss Abdel-Majid Mahmoud. (13)
Counselor Tariq Al-Bashri comments, describing the constitutional declaration issued by Morsi as "non-existent." He says: "I described Muhammad Morsi's decision to dismiss the public prosecutor as aggression against the judiciary, which I do not think happened before in the history of Egypt ... And I added in special statements to Al-Shorouk newspaper: It is really strange The reaction of the president should come like this, despite the fact that the Public Prosecutor did not originally investigate this issue regarding the location of the camel, but was investigated by investigative judges assigned by the former Minister of Justice Muhammad Abdul Aziz Al-Jundi .. And I indicated at the time that we were paying the price of the mistake that occurred after the outbreak of the revolution, It is the failure to hold exceptional revolutionary trials away from the prosecution and the existing courts to eliminate the symbols and flaws of the previous regime. The trial of those accused of "camel signatures" under the circumstances in which the investigations were launched is very difficult, because there is no real material evidence for these defendants ..
She stressed that a judge may not rule unless he has strong evidence for the accused, and the public prosecutor or investigative judges do not ask for evidence, because it is only for criminal research and the police, so what is happening now is that the judiciary is charged more than its capacity, and I strongly criticized the relationship between Political bodies and the judiciary .. And I said: When the People’s Assembly existed, it did not issue a law for political isolation except when a majority of it presented a candidate for the presidency and another candidate from the old regime came forward against him, and when the parliament felt that the law would inevitably be nullified in the Supreme Constitutional Court, which is what happened later, He resorted to threatening the court with amendments to its law, and this is unacceptable, and today it is repeated in another way with the issuance of an improper Republican decision to dismiss the public prosecutor, which indicates a totally rejected view of the judicial bodies. (14)
The result of that wave was Morsi's retreat from the dismissal decision, to satisfy all the angry parties, but he returned and issued another constitutional declaration on November 22, 2012, to make this declaration an opportunity for the forces of the counter-revolution and the remnants of the Mubarak regime to pay the strongest blow to Morsi, and turned the Egyptian street on him Unprecedentedly. In the meantime, the Constituent Constituent Assembly was working in full swing to introduce a new constitution for the country, but on November 16, 2012 the opposition mobilized in Tahrir Square with the aim of ousting Morsi, or so some of its representatives stated, and on November 20, 2012 The seat of the Constituent Assembly was besieged, and members of the security apparatus informed its members that they were not responsible for their safety, but they refused to leave the headquarters (15), and when Morsi felt the Constitutional Court moved towards issuing a ruling to dissolve the Constituent Assembly to write the constitution, he issued his constitutional declaration.
On November 22, 2012, Morsi issued a constitutional declaration that sparked unprecedented controversy, objection, and anger, because of the declaration that Morsi had immunized all of its decisions, as well as the Constituent Assembly and the Shura Council immunity from dissolution and the procedures for appointing the Attorney General. The reactions against the constitutional declaration continued at several levels, the most important of which was the level of the judiciary that "turned into a tool to paralyze the elected institutions and undermine the democratic transition process. The emergency general assembly of the Judges Club announced a sit-in against the constitutional declaration, and the Court of Cassation announced the suspension of its actions, while the constitutional court described what It happens to blackmail him to eliminate. " (15th)
Hence the crowds and counter-crowds started, the National Salvation Front was formed, the war drums rang and the Egyptian street lit up. On December 1, 2012, a large number of Morsi supporters besieged the headquarters of the Supreme Constitutional Court in Maadi Corniche, in anticipation of the court’s consideration the next day of lawsuits calling for the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly for the Constitution and the Shura Council, and the siege lasted for about a month, until the Constituent Assembly ended Her work, and a referendum was held on the constitution that won the majority of votes.
But the matter did not end. On April 21, 2013, that is, two months before the coup, the Supreme Administrative Court ruled to stop the implementation of Decree No. 134 of 2013 issued by the President of the Republic calling on voters to elect a new parliament, then on June 2, 2013, the court ruled The Supreme Constitutional Council invalidates the Shura Council elections, and the Constituent Assembly nullifies the constitution, nearly a year after ruling to nullify the People's Assembly elections, in order for Egypt to receive the military coup without any elected body, and to give way to military laws, but where was the judiciary’s independence stream from all of that?
On April 21, 2013, Minister of Justice Counselor Ahmed Makki submitted his resignation to Morsi against the background of the crisis of the Judicial Authority Law, and the People’s Assembly was supposed to discuss this law, before the Constitutional Court blocked the way to this step and issued its decision to dissolve Parliament in June 2012 And when the Shura Council began discussing the law, some judges from the Judges Club began a sit-in at the end of May 2013 to protest the discussion of this law, which puts the judiciary in their hands in the grip of the executive branch. (15th)
Counselor Ahmed Makki, the former vice-president of the Court of Cassation, had assumed the ministerial portfolio with the government of Dr. Hisham Kandil until May 2013, and throughout his tenure he was besieged by the Brotherhood loyalty accusation despite his opposition to the constitutional declaration issued by former President Mohamed Morsi, then Makki’s resignation came from his post after issuing the Judicial Authority Law without presenting it to the judges, saying in the text of his resignation to “Morsi”: “The burden of the Ministry of Justice and your opponents has compelled me to resign, in agreement with my previous positions .. Yesterday and under the slogan of cleansing the judiciary and issuing the new law for the authority The judiciary Your supporters met to request my dismissal in order to achieve their noble goals, and this is how consensus has been achieved .. The time has come to fulfill my wish to remove this burden from my shoulders, so I appeal to you to respond as soon as this book is read ... God bless you, and Egypt preserves your supporters and opponents, and keeps you from them all. " (16)
But Makki’s position was not a strictly personal position, as it represented the position of the “Independence Stream” judges who saw in that law a major crisis, as the executive authority is allowed to interfere in the matter of forming judicial committees, which Counselor Tariq Al-Bashri commented on in the Egyptian newspaper, Al-Shorouk (17). ), But the matter also includes the law “to reduce the retirement age of judges” which lawyer Issam Sultan had put up for discussion in the People's Assembly.
Counselor Tariq Al-Bashri also commented on him, saying: "This law is a crime against the principle of the independence of the judiciary, because in fact it is a decision to dismiss thousands of judges from their posts, just like the text that was made in the constitution to limit the number of members of the Supreme Constitutional Court, and reduce them to a president and 10 members only, to remove A number of its members. "
He added: "The reality now confirms the existence of attempts by the executive and legislative authorities to interfere in the work of the judiciary, impose guardianship over it, and attempt to undermine its independence which it gained over decades." Where the human being sees that the modern Egyptian state was founded about 150 years ago on two basic pillars, the armed forces and the judiciary, and the stability of these two institutions and their ability to continue and their expression of the general Egyptian society represented the most important guarantees of the cohesion of the Egyptian state apparatus. (18)
However, these two institutions that constitute the mainstay of the Egyptian state have resulted in the loss of the democratic transition, and the preparation for the military coup, which occurred on July 3, 2013, when Mohamed Morsi was isolated and arrested, then the army took control and politicized the judiciary in favor of the new military regime, and provisions came The unfair judiciary of life sentences and executions, which killed thousands of Egyptians over the gallows or in prisons, and after the chanting in the Egyptian street: "In Egypt, judges do not fear but God" has become: "In Egypt judges do not fear even God."