President of the Cairo Court of Appeals Fouad Rashed has returned to Egypt since the United Arab Emirates decided to terminate his service contract in the Gulf nation.
Rashed is set to hold a press conference Thursday to explain the incident.
Rashed told Al-Masry Al-Youm he had been transferred to the UAE to be a judge in the Ras al-Khaimah emirate, whose judiciary is independent from other emirates. The decision to terminate Rashed's contract was made by UAE authorities, not Ras al-Khaimah authorities, he added.
"I was surprised by a call from the [Ras al-Khaimah] justice minister in which he told me in a regrettable tone that my transfer was terminated for two main reasons. The first is my revolutionary writings related to my country, Egypt, and the second is my condemnation of discrimination between Egyptian and Emirati judges, as the former earns one-third of his Emirati counterpart's salary," Rashed said.
Rashed is part of the independent judiciary movement against former President Hosni Mubarak. He was transferred to Ras al-Khaimah as an appeals court judge after the UAE government requested his services from the Supreme Judicial Council in Egypt. Rashed's UAE contract was scheduled to end on 12 January 2014.
The committee formed by professional syndicates to follow up on Egyptians detained in the UAE denounced the Rashed incident, describing it as "arbitrary and unfair."
The committee believes Rashed’s writings, in which he demanded equality between Emirati and Egyptian judges, are the reason he was driven out.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
