Egypt

Cairo on 19 April 2006

Human Rights Organizations

Call upon Lawyers and Citizens for Actual Solidarity with Egypt's Judges

Within the framework of continued coordination and consultation concerning solidarity with Egypt's judges about their independence and the violations some of the Court of Cassation judges are subject to, human rights organizations held a coordination meeting on Tuesday, 18 April, 2006 at the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (ACIJLP) to discuss and consider means of solidarity with Egypt's judges, particularly those referred to a judiciary penal committee. ACIJLP invited the following organizations to this emergency meeting:

1. The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR)

2. The Group for Democracy Development (GDD)

3. The Arab Organization for Criminal Reform (AOCR)

4. The Human Rights Association for the Assistance of Prisoners (HRAAP)

5. Dialogue Forum for Development and Human Rights

6. Land Center for Human Rights

7. Andalus Center for Tolerance Studies

8. Center for Human Rights Legal Aid (CHRLA)

The above-mentioned organizations consider this serious development of referring the following Counselors:

1. Mahmoud Makki, deputy to the head of the Court of Cassation, and

2. Hisham al-Bastawissi, deputy to the head of the Court of Cassation

to the Judges' penal committee while there is a disagreement between the head of the committee and the referred judges reminds us of the 1969 judges' massacre.

In their meeting, the above-mentioned human rights organizations reached the following decisions with relation to coordinating solidarity with Egypt's judges:

1. Prepare for a major conference for Egypt's lawyers to express their solidarity with Egypt's judges on 27 April 2006. The aim will be to attend the penal session scheduled on the same date (27 April).

2. Start a solidarity campaign in the newspapers calling upon citizens regardless of their affiliations to express their solidarity with Egypt's judges through objection telegrams to the chairman of the Supreme Judiciary Council.

The organizations also again emphasized the right of the judges to express their opinion concerning legislation organizing their profession in accordance with international criteria relevant to the independence of the Judiciary Authority in Egypt.

The organizations called upon the Minister of Justice and the Chairman of the Supreme Judiciary Council to reconsider the referral of Counselors Mahmoud Makki and Hisham al-Bastawissi to the judges' penal committee and to observe the UN principles concerning the independence of the Judiciary Authority, particularly Article 20 which states that "decisions issued concerning penal measures or measures to dismiss or suspend judges should be subject to reconsideration on part of an independent entity."

The organizations, in their above-mentioned meeting, again called upon the UN Special Rapporteur for the Independence of the Judiciary to immediately and urgently intervene to stop the violations the judges referred to investigation and the Counselors referred to the penal committee are subjected to.

The human rights organizations had held their first meeting to coordinate for solidarity with Egypt's judges on Sunday, 26 March 2006 considering their meeting continuously convened until the strategy agreed upon is implemented -the steps of which shall be announced in due time and upon implementation.

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