Michaela Singer reports:
Standing before a row of black-clad central security police, lawyers from all over Cairo crammed into the small forecourt of the Lawyers’ Syndicate to protest against proposed amendments to the lawyers’ laws.
The protest comes on the eve of what is expected to be the final vote on the amendments, which, according to sources at the Lawyers’ Syndicate board, were composed solely by syndicate head Sameh Ashour.
The amendments to the current law focus on the board of elected representatives of the Lawyers’ Syndicate. Elections were due to be held this year, but in a court ruling last month they were cancelled indefinitely.
The 2004 elections, which were riddled with vote rigging from all sides, including accusations against Ashour himself, were also declared invalid.
A court ruling in 2005 confirmed that several cases of rigging, which included the mysterious disappearance of six ballot boxes, marred the election. However, no follow-up investigation was undertaken, nor was anyone, throughout the previous three years of the current term, officially accused of vote rigging
With the invalidity of the previous elections now officially declared, the current president Ashour can legally stand for what will effectively be a third term in office. However, until the elections take place, he will form a syndicate board with presidents of sub-syndicates standing in for the other representatives.
Yet many believe this is a strategy hatched between government authorities and current head Ashour, with the aim of stifling the independence of the syndicate and subjecting it to the state of “sequestration and a government appointed guardianship.”
“This will not serve the interests of the profession,” Mohammed Kamel, vice-president of the syndicate and Wafd party member, told Daily News Egypt. “Local syndicate presidents represent their local governorate; it is not their job to drive forward the profession itself.”
