Court To Decide On Judges In Egypt Prosecutor-General Case

The Cairo Appeal Court will decide on 28 May whether to order a change of judges in the case against the appointment of Prosecutor-General Talaat Abdullah.

Abdullah requested the change.

On 25 April, Abdullah appealed a court verdict dismissing him and reappointing his predecessor Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud.

Abdullah said the verdict was non-enforceable on grounds that it violated both the law and constitution.

On 27 March, an appeal court reversed President Morsi’s November 2012 constitutional decree that dismissed Mahmoud. The decree, which was later cancelled, also made the president’s decisions immune from appeal and shielded the constitution-drafting assembly and upper house of parliament from dissolution by the courts.

Mahmoud has filed another appeal against the ruling reinstating him as prosecutor-general – a ruling in his favour that reversed the constitutional decree that deposed him late last year.

Mahmoud said his appeal was due to the delay in implementing the ruling to reinstate him, and because the verdict failed to describe the constitutional decree as null and void.

In his appeal to Egypt’s Court of Cassation, Mahmoud stressed his insistence that the constitutional decree be formally scrapped.

Many opposition groups are demanding the dismissal of the current prosecutor-general, Talaat Abdullah, who they accuse of working in the interests of the Muslim Brotherhood. Islamist forces, on the other hand, have praised Abdullah’s appointment a step towards purging the judiciary of Mubarak regime loyalists.

Ahram