Egypt

Cairo 5th,January 2006

ACIJLP Launches Campaign to Enable Women to Occupy Positions in the Judiciary in Egypt

The Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (ACIJLP) is launching in January its 12-month campaign to "empower Egyptian women to occupy judiciary positions."

The campaign seeks to change the Egyptian reality that refuses to appoint women in the Judiciary. The campaign also aims to determine the relevant legislative and other obstacles and the accompanying review of laws related to appointment in judiciary bodies, as well as the laws concerning people who perform judiciary work, including judges and lawyers, to see if the laws measure up to international criteria. The campaign also seeks to offer visions about the necessary steps to enable women to practice their constitutional and legal rights to occupy public positions, an issue where the government took positive steps in 2002 by appointing a female judge in the Supreme Constitutional Court. Since then no further steps were taken.

The campaign includes a series of academic and intellectual conferences to support the issue. It also includes a series of training courses for Egyptian female lawyers to prepare them to apply for the jobs of public prosecution members and assistant representative at the State Council. The campaign includes a number of publicity bulletins and publications on the topic of the campaign, calls to introduce legislative amendments to related laws, as well as urging parliament members to support the ACIJLP campaign.

A number of research papers related to the topic of the campaign will be presented during the above-mentioned series of conferences. The papers will be presented by a number of specialized judges, lawyers, law professors and human rights activists, as well as a number of human rights, legislative and media figures.

The campaign also includes forming work committees from each conference to be in charge of stimulating the issued recommendations then present them to Egypt's lawmakers, civil society organizations and Egypt's media institutions.

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