Egypt’s President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi on Sunday issued presidential decree to appoint three deputies to the chief justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC).
The three deputies are: Khaled Rafaat El-Dosoky, Alaa El-Din Ahmed Al-Sayed, and Fatma Mohamed Al-Razaz. The decree was published in the official gazette on Sunday.
The SCC selects its own chief justice and other justices, and even decides how many justices will serve on the court.
It is one of Egypt’s most powerful and autonomous institutions of government, with a history of battles with authoritarian regimes and of rejecting laws that exclude certain groups from political participation or that tilt the political playing field in favor of government-approved political parties.
The Supreme Constitutional Court is a specialized court comprised of a President (or Chief Justice) and ten Vice-Presidents (or Deputy Chief Justices), with the primary role of deciding the constitutionality of laws.
The 2014 Constitution was drafted in such a manner as to preclude the potential for a recurrence of such court-packing by the President of the Republic.
