As the trials of former President Hosni Mubarak and former Interior Minister Habib al-Adly are set to resume, today’s papers shed light on the increasing pressure on the judiciary to clean up its own house, before the “youth of Tahrir” force it to do so.
An extraordinary meeting of the general assembly of the Supreme Judicial Council yesterday showed deep divisions over head of the Supreme Judicial Council Hossam al-Gheriany’s decision to form a committee, headed by Ahmed Mekky, deputy head of the Court of Cassation, to redraft the existing Judicial Authority Law 142/2006.
Privately owned Al-Shorouk reports that the assembly became mired in verbal altercations over the direction in which to proceed. Gheriany’s speech was met with strong reactions; one particularly powerful statement was: “The people brought down the executive and legislative powers and will do the same to the judiciary, and will burn down the courts like they burnt down police stations, if you do not cleanse yourselves.”
Opposition to the committee was led by Ezzat Agwa, president of the Alexandria Judges Club (where the meeting was held), who in his speech stated that the redrafting of the law should be undertaken by the general assembly, not a committee hand-picked by Gheriany to appease his friend, Mekky.
The opposition daily Al-Wafd also leads with the judges’ meeting, stating that Gheriany admitted that the formation of the committee and the choices of its members were unilateral decisions that he took without the approval of the Supreme Judicial Council. The paper reports that Gheriany also admitted that he had been put under pressure by the Mubarak regime to rescind certain court rulings, adding that it was imperative in this new era to further ensure the independence of the judiciary.
The other – and more obvious – major story in today’s newspapers concerns the resumption of the trials of Adly (14 August) and Mubarak (15 August). State-owned Al-Ahram reports that the head of the oncology department at Cairo University, Yasser Abdel Kader, visited Mubarak at the request of the court to carry out a health check. The paper reported that Mubarak’s condition is stable and he will need no exceptional medical aid for the trial.
State-owned Al-Akhbar takes making a mountain out of a molehill to new heights, with a headline on its fifth page speculating about whether Mubarak will be rolled in on a bed like in his previous appearance, or would stand this time. And while the paper reports that Mubarak’s condition has improved, it states that the report requested by the court from Abdel Kader hadn’t appeared yet.
Al-Akhbar goes on to speculate as to whether the court will make a decision regarding the request of Mubarak’s defense team to summon Supreme Council of Armed Forces head Hussein Tantawi, Chief of Staff Sami Anan and former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman as witnesses.
Editor-in-chief of the private Al-Tahrir newspaper, Ibrahim Eissa, recounts in his column today the story of a protest that took place in front of the Supreme Judicial Council during the reign of Mubarak, which demanded the end of Emergency Law and police torture. The protest was small, as was customary in those days, and cordoned off by a large number of security forces.
Eissa writes that security forces allowed a woman to enter the protest who began to berate the protesters, accusing them of being hired foreign agents. She went on to chant, “Long live Habib al-Adly, Long live Hosni Mubarak!” The date of that protest was 25 January, 2010, “a year and a half before Adly and Mubarak appeared in the same cage in court.”
Egypt's papers:
Al-Ahram: Daily, state-run, largest distribution in Egypt
Al-Akhbar: Daily, state-run, second to Al-Ahram in institutional size
Al-Gomhurriya: Daily, state-run
Rose al-Youssef: Daily, state-run, close to the National Democratic Party's Policies Secretariat
Al-Dostour: Daily, privately owned
Al-Shorouk: Daily, privately owned
Al-Wafd: Daily, published by the liberal Wafd Party
Al-Arabi: Weekly, published by the Arab Nasserist party
Youm7: Weekly, privately owned
Sawt al-Umma: Weekly, privately owned
