Monday, January 19, 2009

Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court Postpones its Decision on the Appeal

In its session today, Egypt's Supreme Administrative Court postponed its verdict on the appeal by the Islamist lawyer, named Abd El-Mageed El-Aanany, who was not a party to lawsuits brought by the Baha'is in their quest for obtaining ID cards and birth certificates. Cairo's Administrative Court had ruled in favor of the Baha'is on 29 January 2008, and allowed them to obtain ID cards and birth certificates with dashes [--] inserted in place of religious identification.

Instead of ruling on the case today, the Supreme Administrative Court decided to announce its final verdict regarding the appeal during its upcoming session of 2 February 2009.

Such an appeal is not an obstacle to enforcing the lower court's ruling unless the court had decided to stop the implementation of the said ruling. The courts have not done so, thus there are no barriers to the government's enforcement of the lower court's ruling. So far, not a single Baha'i in Egypt has been able to obtain identification documents under this ruling.

Additionally, the Supreme Administrative Court's own State Judiciary Council had considered the appeal and had rejected it. The court is expected to abide by the decision of the Council.

4 comments:

  1. This is getting really ridiculous! How many times can courts in Egypt postpone their rulings? Aren't they embarrased even a little bit about this situation? The only two explanations that I can find to this are that the judges in Egypt get paid per hour and/or they are incompetent! Jal-lal khaliq! My sympathies with the Baha'is in Egypt who in the meantime are suffering.

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  2. gee for a moment I thought the Egyptian Courts grew a BACKBONE...

    Suprise..... The slime of bigotry still infests the Court system there ....PITY!!!

    God Help us all...

    Hopefully President Obama will issue the necessary warnings to the tyrants

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  3. Given the complexity of the situation it would be best not to jump to any conclusions at this time. My tendency is to--still--give it the benefit of doubt and see what the final outcome is before making any judgments. The wheels of justice can be very slow...in any country.

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  4. Friends,
    Please join this wonderful initiative for the Baha'is in Egypt:
    www.bahaidream.com/horaciones

    ReplyDelete

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