Egypt’s Justice Ministry Staffers Go On Strike Over Financial Demands

Dozens of employees in Egypt’s Ministry of Justice, the body responsible for courts and the prosecution, began Wednesday a strike nationwide over unpaid financial incentives.

Staffers at the ministry’s Expert Authority said the labour action was aimed to protest against the withholding of bonuses worth three months in salary for both 2013 and 2014, and which other divisions in the ministry have already received.

The Expert Authority is a body of specialists in charge of proceeding with financial and administrative litigation, including civil, misdemeanor, taxation, public funds and illicit gains cases, before they return to the normal court circuit.

At least 15 offices nationwide joined the strike Wednesday with employees refusing to receive lawsuit files from courts across the country, Mahmoud Attiya, one of the striking specialists in Minya, told Ahram Online.

The number of cases referred daily to each office range anywhere between 200-400, employees say. A strike would mean that hundreds of cases would be put on hold every day.

“We have tried all legal actions before we decided to go on strike, after the ministry reneged on all its promises,” Attiya said.

“We are asking for a legitimate demand, and for our right to be treated on an equal footing with the rest of the ministry’s employees who got their money,” Attiya added

‘Mere rumours’

The head of the Expert Authority, however, quashed the ongoing strike as “mere rumours.”

“There is no strike and offices are working completely normally countrywide,” Zeinhom Ali Mostafa said.

Yet Mostafa confirmed employees in the authority have yet to be paid their bonuses.

An investigation into the reason for the delay is underway, he said.

Source : Ahram online