Egypt judges up political stakes with referendum boycott

Egyptian judges refused on Sunday to oversee a referendum due in less than two weeks on a controversial new constitution drafted by an Islamist-dominated panel, sharply upping the stakes of a standoff with the Islamist president.

The announcement by the Judges Club, which represents judges nationwide, came after Egypt’s top court began an open-ended strike in the face of a mass protest outside the courthouse by supporters of President Mohamed Morsi opposed to their ruling on the legality of the panel that drew up the draft charter.

Judges traditionally supervise elections in Egypt, giving them a seal of legitimacy, but they have been openly at loggerheads with Morsi since he issued a decree last month placing both his decisions and the charter panel beyond their scrutiny.

The standoff has polarised Egyptian opinion and sparked the biggest political crisis since Morsi assumed power in June as the country’s first ever civilian president and its first elected leader since the overthrow of veteran strongman Hosni Mubarak in a popular uprising early last year.

“It has been agreed by all the judges of Egypt and the Judges Clubs outside the capital not to supervise a referendum on the draft constitution and to boycott it,” the head of the Judges Club, Ahmed al-Zind, said.

The charter, adopted by the panel on Friday in the face of a boycott by liberals and Christians, has been criticised for paving the way to a strict interpretation of Islamic law and for failing to secure key rights.