CAIRO — Egypt’s constitutional court Sunday put off its much-awaited ruling on the legitimacy of the Islamist-led legislative assembly that drafted a new charter last week, accusing a crowd of Islamists outside the courthouse of intimidating its judges.
What actually took place at the courthouse, however, is a matter of dispute.
Calling Sunday “a dark black day in the history of the Egyptian judiciary,” the Supreme Constitutional Court said in a statement that a mob of Islamists had blocked the judges from entering the courthouse, in an“abhorrent scene of shame and disgrace.”
Approaching the court, the judges saw crowds “closing the entrances of the roads to the gates, climbing the fences, chanting slogans denouncing judges and inciting the people against them,” the statement said, adding that “the threat of harm” prevented the judges from entering. The judges said they were suspending the court’s sessions until they could resume their work without “psychological and physical pressures.”
While the judges blamed the Islamists, the Islamists accused the judges of manufacturing a melodramatic excuse for failing to show up. And the contradictory narratives captured a clash between the judges - appointed by Hosni Mubarak, the former president - and Egypt’s new Islamist leaders that has thrown the political transition into a new crisis 22 months after Mubarak’s ouster.
“The country cannot function for long like this. Something has to give,” said Negad Borai, a private law firm director and a rights activist. “We are in a country without courts of law and a president with all the powers in his hands. This is a clear-cut dictatorial climate,” he said.
Egyptian courts had previously dissolved both the elected parliament and an earlier Constitutional Assembly, and the breakup of the current one would have completely undone the transition. President Mohammed Morsi cited the pending ruling Nov. 22 when he put his own edicts above judicial review until ratification of the constitution, saying that he intended to protect the assembly until it finished its work.
That same apprehension about the ruling drove the assembly to rush to approve a constitution just before dawn Friday, over the objections of secular parties and the Coptic Christian Church, before the court could act.
The judges’ statement on Sunday was a counterattack, and the scene outside the courthouse was much quieter than their statement described. A line of hundreds of riot police officers backed by a firetruck and several armored personnel carriers were on hand to secure the judges’ entry to the courthouse, and several people were seen coming and going without any difficulty.
The Interior Ministry said in a statement on its website that it had arranged to secure the entrance and protect the judges, that the protests were “peaceful” and that a number of judges had already arrived safely.
On the other side of the police line was a relatively staid crowd of a few hundred demonstrators from the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s mainstream political group, and its political arm, Morsi’s Freedom and Justice Party. Like many of the group’s demonstrations, it was a mostly middle-aged, middle-class crowd of men in sweaters and a few neckties. By around 10 a.m., some were chanting slogans, but others were sitting on the ground reading newspapers. Many carried placards with Morsi’s picture or banners with the logo of his party, and one was reading its Web page on his iPad.
“We immunize the constituent assembly, and dissolve the constitutional court,” they chanted. “Freedom is coming, coming.” Some chants were directed at Judge Tahani el-Gebali, who is known for her political activism and opposition to the Islamists.
Elsewhere, the battle over control of the transition’s final stage appeared to widen. The Judges Club, a union with 9,500 members, said late Sunday that judges would not, as customary, oversee the national referendum Morsi called for Dec. 15 on the draft constitution hammered out and hurriedly voted on last week.
The absence of their oversight would raise more questions about the validity of the vote. If the draft is passed in the referendum, parliamentary elections are to follow two months later, and they may not have judicial supervision either.
Leaders of the Judges Club have been outspoken opponents of the Islamists. On the day of the presidential election, its leader tried to undermine Morsi by holding a news conference to accuse his campaign of fraud and other violations, though no systematic irregularities were ultimately found. The club has already called for a nationwide judges’ strike to protest Morsi’s attempt to claim temporary powers above the judiciary, and Morsi’s aides say they have been considering other options if the judges refuse to monitor the referendum.
Judges from the country’s highest appeals court and its sister lower court were already on an indefinite strike, joining colleagues from other tribunals who suspended work last week to protest what they saw as Morsi’s assault on the judiciary.
The last time Egypt had an all-out strike by the judiciary was in 1919, when judges joined an uprising against British colonial rule.
The Islamists in the Constitutional Assembly, meanwhile, have apparently struck back at their foes in the court. Egyptian state news media reported the existence of a little-noticed clause tucked into the draft constitution that appears to single out el-Gebali, the Islamists’ bete noire, for removal from the bench.
The provision would keep the president of the court and its 10 most senior judges, but remove more junior members, and the 11th in seniority - the first who would be forced off the bench - is el-Gebali.
“She makes no secret of her concern about the rise of the Islamists, and Islamists have come to see her as a justice who rules on the basis of her political preferences,” said Nathan Brown, a scholar of the Egyptian legal system at George Washington University. “If the constitution is passed and goes into effect, she will lose her position on the bench immediately because of a clause that seems designed with one purpose in mind: to dismiss her.”
A report from the international group Human Rights Watch calls the draft constitution “mixed” in its protection of human rights, with some possible provisions undermining broad protections. But secular groups called for a march on Sunday to demand that the president cancel the draft, charging that it would “restrict the political, civil, economic and social rights and freedoms of Egyptians.”
The groups said it “expresses the vision of one party,” the Islamists.
It is unclear when the constitutional court might resume its work or issue a decision. As of Sunday evening, small groups of Islamists had set up tents and appeared prepared to sleep outside on the courthouse lawn, overlooking the Nile River.
Information for this article was contributed by David D. Kirkpatrick and Mayy El Sheikh of The New York Times; and by Hamza Hendawi of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 1 on 12/03/2012