Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi faces a rebellion from judges who accused him yesterday of expanding his powers at their expense, deepening a crisis that has triggered calls for more protests following a day of violence across Egypt.
We are facing a historic moment in which we either complete our revolution or we abandon it
Judges in Alexandria, Egypt’s second city, threatened to go on strike until it was revoked, and there were calls for the “downfall of the regime” – the rallying cry in the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak – during a meeting of judges in Cairo.
Mursi’s opponents and supporters – representing the divide between newly empowered Islamists and a more secular-minded opposition – have called rival demonstrations on Tuesday over his decree that has triggered concern in the West.
Issued late on Thursday, it marks an effort by Mursi to consolidate his influence after he successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August. It defends from judicial review decisions taken by Mursi until a new Parliament is elected in a vote expected early next year.
It also shields the Islamist-dominated assembly writing Egypt’s new constitution from legal challenges that have threatened the body with dissolution, and offers the same protection to the Islamist-controlled upper house of Parliament.
Egypt’s highest judicial authority, the Supreme Judicial Council, said the decree was an “unprecedented attack” on the independence of the judiciary. Youths clashed sporadically with police near Tahrir Square, the epicentre of the uprising that toppled Mubarak in 2011, following Friday’s violence in which more than 300 people were injured across Egypt. Activists camped out for a second day in the square, setting up makeshift barricades to keep out traffic.
Liberal, leftist and socialist parties called a big protest for Tuesday to force Mursi to row back on a decree they say has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak.
In a sign of the polarisation in the country, the Muslim Brotherhood – the group that propelled Mursi to power – called its own protests that day to support the President’s decree. At least three Brotherhood offices were attacked on Friday.
“We are facing a historic moment in which we either complete our revolution or we abandon it to become prey for a group that has put its narrow party interests above the national interest,” the liberal Dustour Party said in a statement.
Mursi also assigned himself new authority to sack the prosecutor general – a Mubarak hold over – and appoint a new one. The dismissed prosecutor general, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, was given a hero’s welcome by several thousand judges who attended the session of Egypt’s Judges’ Club in Cairo yesterday. Ahmed al-Zind, head of the Judges’ Club, introduced Mahmoud by his old title, in open defiance of Mursi’s decree.
The Mursi administration has defended the decree on the grounds that it aims to speed up a protracted transition from Mubarak’s rule to a new system of democratic government.
Analysts say it reflects the Brotherhood’s suspicion towards sections of a judiciary unreformed from Mubarak’s days. “It aims to sideline Mursi’s enemies in the judiciary and ultimately to impose and head off any legal challenges to the constitution,” said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with the European Council on Foreign Relations.