Associated Press
CAIRO: Egypt s judiciary chief has named the country s first female judges despite opposition from conservative Muslims, according to a decree published Wednesday.
Mukbil Shakir, the head of the Supreme Judicial Council, gave 31 women judge or chief judge positions in Egypt s courts, the official Middle East News Agency said, quoting Shakir s decree.
The move is expected to give a boost to President Hosni Mubarak s political and social reforms that have been widely criticized as too restricted. But others said the announcement still falls short of providing women equal opportunities.
The decree said the women, who previously were working as state prosecutors, have passed a special test before they were named to their new posts.
Women’s rights advocates have been pushing for female judges for decades, but the government has refused to give in for fear of angry reaction from conservative Muslims opposed to the move they consider as un-Islamic.
In 2003 Mubarak named female lawyer Tahany El-Gebaly as a judge in the nation s constitutional tribunal, a post which does not include overseeing civil or criminal court cases.
It was not immediately announced what courts the 31 women would preside over.
Some hard-line critics said Shakir s decree contradicts an article in the constitution that states that the principal source of legislation is Sharia. They base their argument on a Quranic tenet that holds that two women are equal to one man if they are called as witnesses in a court.
They argue, therefore, that a woman cannot be a judge if she cannot be a sole witness.
Yahia Ragheb Daqruri, who is an Egyptian judge and president of the judges syndicate, has vehemently opposed having women judges.
Women must not sit as judges because it would be against Sharia as they would have to spend time alone with men, he was quoted as saying in a recent interview in the independent Al-Masry Al-Youm daily.
Others argue that a woman judge can also become pregnant at some point and that would affect the judiciary s prestige.
But Egyptian leading cleric Sheik Mohammed Sayyed Tantawi has ruled that there is nothing in the Quran that bans women from becoming judges.
Tantawi is head of Al-Azhar, the leading Sunni Muslim center of religious thought. His rulings carry substantial weight in the Muslim world, and his statement could have lent legitimacy to campaigns by feminist activists to get women on the bench.
But others said the decree did not go far enough.
Fatima Lashin, a lawyer whose request to join the judiciary was turned down solely on grounds she is a woman, demised the move as cosmetic because the women who were named were chosen among state prosecutors and excluded defense lawyers and civil servants.
She also claimed the government intends to send the women judges to family status tribunals and not criminal courts.
The government should open the post for all women not those of its choice, Lashin told AP.
