CAIRO: Cairo s Administrative Court has halted the Lawyers Syndicate election scheduled to take place on Sunday.
According to daily Al-Masry Al-Youm, the verdict issued on Wednesday suspends implementation of the decree which initiated the nomination process issued by South Cairo Court president Farouq Sultan.
The South Cairo court oversees the election process.
The Administrative Court s decision was, according to Al-Masry Al-Youm, based on a report issued by a judicial committee in order to scrutinize the registration of the names of lawyers who will vote in the elections.
The report describes “violations and errors in the register such as mistakes concerning lawyers names and addresses, and the failure to remove the names of dead lawyers.
The elections have been postponed twice before.
Nominees in the election include Islamist lawyer Montaser El-Zayyat, controversial judge Mortada Mansour, Talaat El-Sadat and the incumbent syndicate head Sameh Ashour.
In October last year, Mohsen Eid, spokesman for El-Sadat, told Daily News Egypt that the elections had been postponed because of a conflict between two laws.
He said that Article 100, which grants South Cairo Court judge Sultan the right to monitor the elections conflicts with article 197/2008 which gives the Cairo Appeals Court, headed by judge Adel Anrawes, the right to monitor the elections.
Ashour, who has held the post for eight years, has been the subject of strong criticism following the passing in June 2008 of a law proposed by the syndicate head which in its original form would have allowed Ashour to stay in his position for another year in order to oversee implementation of the law.
This article was eventually removed in the face of lawyers protests.
Ragaee Attiya – another election candidate – told Egypt Today monthly magazine this month that Ashour “forced the law on the syndicate.
“[Ashour] cooked up the law with the government and the NDP and presented it through the back door, Attiya is quoted as saying.
Ashour denies the allegations.
