EGYPT: A YEAR ON, GOE-JUDGES CLUB DISPUTE

C O N F I D E N T I A L CAIRO 002134 SIPDIS SIPDIS NSC STAFF FOR SINGH E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/06/2016 TAGS: PGOV PHUM KJUS KDEM EG SUBJECT: EGYPT: A YEAR ON, GOE-JUDGES CLUB DISPUTE CONTINUES TO BOIL REF: A. CAIRO 1680 ¶B. CAIRO 1555 ¶C. CAIRO 1009 ¶D. 05 CAIRO 3089 Classified by ECPO Minister-Counselor Michael Corbin for Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). -------------- Summary -------------- ¶1. (C) The confrontation between the GOE and Egypt's Judges Club continues to boil as it moves into its second year. The Judges Club has been militating for a new judiciary law that would guarantee independence it asserts is now lacking and has attacked the GOE's record on human rights and democracy. An April 2 statement by eight pro-GOE judges accused the Judges Club of soliciting foreign intervention and disgracing Egypt's judiciary by wading into base politics. The statement was subsequently rebutted by an NGO closely linked to the club. Also in early April, the Judges Club cancelled a planned meeting with the visiting board of Human Rights Watch, with sources close to Club insisting that GOE duress gave them no choice. Meanwhile, a leading Egyptian human rights group organized an international conference on judicial independence, which issued a closing communique expressing solidarity with the Judges Club and its demands for legal reform. The next big event on the horizon is May 25, when the Judges Club is planning a sit-in at Cairo's central court complex, to be complimented by NGO-organized demonstrations. The Judges Club cannot claim to speak for all of Egypt's judges but is certainly the largest and most powerful interest group in the judiciary. End summary. -------------- Tension Moves into Second Year -------------- ¶2. (C) In mid-March 2005, Egypt's Judges Club, the informal professional organization that claims to speak for the rank and file of Egypt's judiciary, held a fiery General Assembly meeting which ended with an assertive demand for a new judiciary law (ref D). The provisions sought by the Club in the new law would reconfigure Egypt's justice system, making the Supreme Judicial Council, the nation's highest judicial regulatory body, elected by judges rather than appointed by the GOE, and establish independent controls over court budgets and the assignments process. The judges backed up their demands by a threat to sit out their election monitoring duties if ignored by the GOE. ¶3. (C) In the year that has passed since that event, deemed historic by many observers of Egypt's political scene, the judges did not follow through on their threat to sit out the elections, but did issue scathing assessments of the GOE's management of the presidential and parliamentary balloting, with particularly embarrassing and specific revelations of ruling party-sponsored fraud and manipulation in races for certain parliamentary seats. The Club has also maintained pressure on the GOE through demonstrations demanding judicial independence, coordination of activities with other civil society actors, and by taking their case directly to the people through the independent media. For its part, the GOE has yet to give in to demands for a new judiciary law. While the Ministry of Justice is said to have a new draft law in preparation, its contents have been tightly held, and no one seems to know when or if it will be submitted for consideration by parliament. ¶4. (C) The GOE has responded to pressures exerted by the Judges Club by turning up the heat on its leadership, opening (and publicizing) prosecutorial investigations against key leaders of the Club for alleged malfeasance, including defamation of colleagues. The investigations prompted outrage on the part of the judges and were assessed by many observers and commentators as an unprecedented escalation. MOJ sources defended the actions to poloff (ref C) asserting that the investigations were merely following up charges of election malfeasance the judges had made themselves. However, Judges Hisham Bastawisy and Assem Abdel Gabbar, two of the seven Club leaders singled out for questioning, told poloffs the MOJ claim was a "total lie" and insisted that the investigations, well-publicized by the GOE, were clearly intended to intimidate the Club leadership and discourage the younger Club membership from standing firm. The GOE has also reportedly cut off the modest subsidy it has historically provided for upkeep of Judges Club facilities, and is also allegedly retaliating by blocking new appointments and promotions of Club leaders and their relatives. -------------- Appeals Court Judges Attack the Club -------------- ¶5. (SBU) On April 2, the Presidents of Egypt's Eight Courts of Appeal (in Cairo, Alexandria, Tanta, Ismailiya, Mansoura, Beni Suef, Assiyut, and Qena) met and issued a statement aggressively attacking the Judges Club for its activism. Chaired by Justice Ahmed Khalifa, President of the Cairo Supreme Court of Appeals, the meeting concluded with a statement asserting that the Judges Club had "departed...from objectivity and neutrality of the judiciary...taking advantage of their immunity...determined to destroy everything noble...(using) improper language to impose control over their fellow judges..." The statement said the eight appeals judges were "dumbfounded" to hear that the Club planned to meet with members of Human Rights Watch, a group "American in form, but with a Zionist heart." The statement asked rhetorically "Do you want human rights a la Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, or the Zionist way in Palestine?" The statement advises Club leaders: "The judiciary is the judiciary and if you don't like it, quit and work in politics, but don't try to make the judiciary an instrument of politics." -------------- Rebuttal -------------- ¶6. (SBU) The Cairo-based Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (ACIJLP),an active NGO with close ties to the Judges Club, issued on April 3 a rebuttal to the April 2 statement. The ACIJLP statement regretted that the eight Appeals judges had resorted to "name-calling and defamation against thousands of judges for having legitimately expressed their opinions through their general assemblies..." The statement cited a 1943 memo from the Ministry of Justice which affirms that "...judges, being citizens, may express their opinion on matters related to their country, with the only restriction on practicing political activity, such as forming or joining political parties..." The rebuttal adds that it is not the Judges Club that is unrepresentative of Egypt's judges, but the eight pro-GOE judges who issued the April 2 statement who are unrepresentative. The ACIJLP statement closes by rejecting "...pressures by the government against Egyptian judges who are insisting on Egypt's right to an independent judiciary," and calls upon the UN Special Rapporteur on the Independence of the Judiciary to intervene. -------------- HRW Meeting Scuttled -------------- ¶7. (C) Rebuttals notwithstanding, the April 2 statement appeared to have an immediate effect on the Judges Club, when Club President Zakaria Abdel Aziz announced on April 3 that they had decided to cancel a previously scheduled meeting with the visiting board of New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW). Earlier, sources in the Judges Club had told Egyptian media they would meet with HRW, but only in the presence of officials from the MOJ, and that the only subject they would discuss is judicial independence. However, in an April 3 press conference, Abdel Aziz made clear that no meeting would take place and insisted that the decision had been made by the Club independent of any outside pressures. In his statement, Abdel Aziz thanked HRW for its appreciation of the Egyptian judiciary, and called on the group to pay special attention to human rights abuses occurring in Iraq and Palestine, adding that the Club hoped that "circumstances would permit the arrangement of a meeting between HRW and the Club in the near future." Nasser Amin, Chairman of the ACIJLP, told poloff on April 5 that Abdel Aziz had confirmed to him that the Club had felt cornered by the GOE's nationalist attack on HRW, conveyed through the April 2 statement, and "had no choice" but to scrub the meeting. Members of the HRW Board echoed to poloff at an April 5 reception their conviction that the GOE had forced the Club to cancel the meeting, but the cancellation appeared to strengthen rather than undermine their view that the independence of Egypt's judiciary was compromised. -------------- Conference Expresses Solidarity -------------- ¶8. (C) Meanwhile, on April 1-3, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS),supported by the Paris-based International Federation for Human Rights, sponsored a Conference on the Role of the Judiciary in Political Reform in Egypt and the Arab World. The conference attracted 120 participants, including judges, lawyers, academics, and activists, from 11 Arab countries. The conference concluded with a statement expressing solidarity with Egypt's Judges Club, rejecting the "alarming" decision to have prosecutors investigate seven members of the Club leadership, regretting GOE reprisals "against judges who demand judicial reform and impartial elections," and described the Judges Club as the "sole legitimate elected representative association of Egyptian judges." The communique also supported Club demands that the Supreme Judicial Council be elected rather than appointed, and that the Council be granted an independent budget and exclusive authority over judicial appointments and transfers, to shield judges from external pressures. Activist Bahaieldin Hassan, President of the CIHRS, told poloff on April 4 that the timing of the conference had been fortuitous but coincidental, planning for it had begun last summer. (Like ACIJLP's Nasser Amin, Hassan was convinced that the Judges Club's decision to cancel its meeting with HRW was made under GOE duress.) -------------- Next Landmark - May 25 -------------- ¶10. (C) The next landmark in the ongoing feud between the Judges Club and the GOE will likely be a sit-in by judges at the Cairo's central court complex, Dar al-Qada Al-Aly, on May ¶25. The event, sure to get significant media attention, will fall on the first anniversary of the public referendum on the amendment to Article 76 of the Constitution, which introduced competitive presidential elections for the first time in Egypt's history. May 25 has become an infamous date among Egypt's activist community, after thugs allegedly commissioned by the government attacked protesters calling for a boycott of the vote on that date in 2005. Famously, several female protestors were targeted for humiliation by thugs who ripped off their clothes in front of domestic and international journalists photographing the demonstration. A coalition of anti-GOE groups including Ayman Nour's Ghad Party and the Kefaya ("Enough") protest movement are planning their own demonstration on May 25, which will mark the anniversary and express solidarity with the judges. A member of the Kefaya movement told poloff on April 5 she was concerned that May 25 could see a repeat of clashes between protesters and GOE forces. -------------- -------------- So Who Are the Judges Club and What Do they Represent? -------------- -------------- ¶11. (C) Pro-GOE judges frequently tell us that the Judges Club leadership speaks for a faction, rather than the totality, of the Egyptian judiciary. They also assert that the Club leadership's calls for democracy and transparent elections are tactical - their real goal is a better salary and benefits package, and assert that many in the leadership are close to the Muslim Brotherhood. In discussions with us, Judges Club leaders agree that improving salary and benefits for judges is one of their goals, asserting that this is a necessary step toward guaranteeing their independence. At present, judges' base salaries are low. "Cooperative" judges can supplement their low salaries with "consultative contracts," lucrative bonuses for doing elections duty, and even secondments to courts in the Gulf states, where the host governments pick up extra costs and provide fees. While judges in general continue to command societal respect, it is also generally acknowledged that many judges are "on the take," accepting payments to move cases from an endless backlog farther up on the docket, or even, in some cases, to rule in favor of the party offering the higher bribe. ¶12. (C) Egypt's judges run the full spectrum of political views, from old-school nationalists to liberals to Islamists, and each of these trends is represented in the Club. However, Bahaieldin Hassan asserts, the Judges Club leadership has not let deep ideological differences within the group preempt their joint work toward the goal of a new judiciary law, and thus they have become a model for cooperation, he believes. ¶13. (C) Is the Judges Club truly representative of the broader body of Egyptian judges? We note that 4,652 out of Egypt's approximately 9,000 judges participated in the December 2005 national Club elections. 3,680 of those who voted selected Counselor Zakaria Abdel Aziz as Club President, while 930 voted for the pro-GOE candidate. Thus, while the Club and its current leadership can not be said to be the sole legitimate spokesman for Egypt's judges, it clearly is the largest and most influential interest group among them. RICCIARDONE