An Egyptian court will next week examine the legality of a decree by which President Mohamed Morsi granted himself sweeping powers, a move that triggered deadly unrest, an official said yesterday.
Abdel Meguid al-Moqannen, the deputy chief of the State Council, Egypt’s highest administrative body, said more than 12 lawsuits had been filed against the decree, the official Mena news agency reported.
The case will be heard on December 4.
The announcement came as Morsi met with senior judges for talks in a bid to defuse the crisis that erupted after he assumed sweeping new powers last Thursday.
The talks, on the eve of rival rallies which threaten to deepen the country’s divisions, come a day after a member of his party was killed in clashes outside its offices in the Nile Delta town of Damanhour.
Several offices belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) have also been torched.
In the Nile Delta city of Damanhour, hundreds turned out for the burial of Muslim Brotherhood member Islam Fathi Mohammed who was killed in clashes outside the Islamist movement’s offices.
In Cairo, thousands marched at the funeral procession of Gaber Salah, a member of the April 6 movement known by his nickname “Jika”, who was critically injured in clashes near Cairo’s Tahrir Square last week and died overnight.
Morsi’s declaration – which allows him to issue decisions and laws unchallenged on a tem-porary basis – sparked a wave of nationwide demonstrations. Some courts have suspended work in protest, while the journalists’ union has decided in principle to go on strike.
A sit-in by Morsi opponents is being held in the iconic Tahrir Square at the heart of last’s year Arab Spring uprising that ousted the regime of veteran dictator Hosni Mubarak.
Small groups of protesters spent Sunday night in the square, where they have erected 30 tents since Friday. “Muslim Brotherhood, keep out,” reads a banner strung up nearby.
The decree states that Morsi can issue “any decision or measure to protect the revolution,” which are final and not subject to appeal, leading to charges that he is taking on dictatorial powers.
In a move to assuage his critics, Morsi was to meet the Supreme Judicial Council after his Justice Minister Ahmed Mekki held preliminary talks with the council, the president’s spokesman Yasser Ali said. Ahead of the talks, key opposition figure Mohamed El Baradei ruled out any com-promise with “a president who is imposing a dictator-ship,” but Mekki said curbs on the widened powers could be discussed.