JUDGES' CLUB - GOE DISPUTE LIKELY TO HEAT UP ON

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 CAIRO 001680

SIPDIS

NSC STAFF FOR SINGH

E.O. 12958: DECL: 03/16/2016
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KDEM EG
SUBJECT: JUDGES' CLUB - GOE DISPUTE LIKELY TO HEAT UP ON
MARCH 17

REF: A. CAIRO 1555

B. CAIRO 1009

C. 05 CAIRO 3089

Classified by DCM Stuart Jones for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) Summary: The March 17 national meeting of the
Egyptian Judges' Club will likely attract significant
national and international media attention, and will probably
result in a defiant stance - prompted by the increasingly
tense confrontation between the government and the judges'
professional association. The event, and an anti-regime
demonstration planned to coincide with it, could prompt
clashes between protesters and security forces on the 17th.
Relations between this key interest group and the GOE have
been sour for a year now, and went sharply downhill during
the flawed parliamentary elections in late 2005 and their
aftermath. Though the Judges' Club leadership has attracted
much attention through its strident public demands for
democratization and political reform, critics charge the
leaders with cynicism and selfish political aims. End
summary.


2. (SBU) The General Assembly of Egypt's Judges' Club will be
held in Cairo on March 17. The meeting will attract
significant attention in the domestic and international
media. The meeting will likely conclude with a communique
harshly critical of the government's handling of last fall's
parliamentary elections, its perceived retaliations against
judges who exposed electoral fraud and rigging, and the GOE's
overall support for democratic and political reforms.
Significant security force deployments sighted near the
meeting venue by poloff on March 16, and reports that the
protest movement Kifaya is planning an anti-regime
demonstration to coincide with the Club meeting, suggest the
possibility of clashes between activists and security forces
on March 17.


3. (C) While the Judges' Club generally functions as a
union/professional association for Egypt's judges, many argue
that the Club's leadership can not claim to represent the
views of the broader judiciary. It is not clear how many of
Egypt's roughly 9,000 judges actively participate in the
Club's activities. The Judges' Club has not registered under
Law 84/2002, which governs NGOs, and thus technically is not
a legally recognized entity. The Judges' Club has been
locked in an increasingly tense confrontation with the GOE
since it began lobbying for a new judiciary law exactly one
year ago (ref C). The judges threatened to abstain from
their duties as poll supervisors during the fall 2005
elections if the GOE failed to curb rigging and intimidation
of voters and guarantee judicial independence through a new
draft law. Though the judges did not carry through with
their threat, the Judges' Club released in October a report
scathingly critical of the GOE's management of the September
presidential polls.


4. (C) Pro-GOE judges we know have criticized the Club's
leadership for cynically exploiting the rhetoric of democracy
and political reform in service of their own quests for
power, influence, and money. Most of the junior judges
supporting the Club leadership are not attracted by
democratic rhetoric so much as they are by promises of better
salaries and benefits, pro-GOE judges maintain. Others have
charged that key members of the Club leadership, such as
Ahmed Mekky and Mahmoud Khodeiry (ref A) are Muslim
Brotherhood sympathizers. (Comment: We can neither confirm
nor rule out these alleged MB sympathies, though common sense
would suggest that a cross-section Egyptian judges, like
wider Egyptian society, would reveal significant support for
the MB. End comment.)


5. (C) Relations between the Club and the state, strained
since March 2005 (ref C),became even more sour during the
November-December parliamentary elections, which were marred
by widespread rigging and vote-buying, intimidation of voters
by thugs, and security force blockages of polling places.
Many judges who participated in the polls, particularly
activists in the club, filed official fraud complaints, while
others went directly to the media with their tales of
intimidation and vote-rigging.


6. (C) The Judges' Club elected a new leadership in December,
just after the parliamentary elections. Pro-government
candidates were easily defeated by Judge Zakariya Abdel Aziz,
an outspoken GOE critic, who won the national organization's
top spot, and like-minded judges who assumed the leadership
of local chapters, particularly in Cairo and Alexandria. The
Ministry of Justice allegedly responded to these results by
blocking the GOE subsidy used for the upkeep of Judges' Club
premises.


7. (C) The confrontation entered a new phase in mid-February
when key activists within the Judges' Club received subpoenas
from prosecutors investigating charges that they had
slandered their colleagues by going public with their
complaints of electoral fraud (ref B). The number of judges
now facing investigation has reportedly increased to eight.


8. (C) This tactic was widely perceived as an escalation by
the GOE, intended to intimidate the most activist judges and
dissuade rank-and-file members of the Club from supporting
them. In their discussions with us, Judges' Club activists
have confidently predicted that this approach will backfire
against the GOE, while admitting that they were worried that
their own careers, and livelihoods, might be sacrificed.
RICCIARDONE