Egypt: Supreme Court criticise Morsi’s foreign affairs adviser

Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court not content with comments Cairo – Akram Ali Deputy Chairman of Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court [SCC], Sami el-Behiri, has issued a statement criticising a document released in English to the foreign media by President Mohammed Morsi’s adviser on foreign affairs Essam el-Haddad in which the latter accuses the SCC of plotting to overturn the revolution’s gains.
The statement by the presidential adviser accused the SCC of dissolving the lower house of parliament in a “suspicious,” also citing “evidence” of a plot by the SCC in league with counterrevolutionary forces to dissolve the Constituent Assembly. Knowledge of this plot, the statement released to the foreign media said, was behind President Mohammed Morsi’s controversial constitutional declaration safeguarding the assembly and the upper house of parliament from judicial scrutiny.
The counter-statement released by SCC deputy chairman Sami el-Behiri posed the question of why el-Haddad did not file a formal complaint against the court instead of addressing foreign media in a matter that touches “the heart” of a “senior state institution.”  
El-Behiri also said he “failed to understand” the reasoning behind addressing foreign media in this matter.
The accusations, el-Behiri’s statement said, “aroused suspicions and doubts” regarding the court, adding it “could only have aimed at destroying this court’s reputation on an international level,” without “presenting a single piece of evidence testifying to the truth of the claims.”
Demanding that any evidence against the court be presented to the concerned authorities, el-Behiri’s statement went on to point out that the presidential aide’s own statement to the foreign press was “pure imagination and delusional” and made him legally liable according to Egypt’s criminal code for spreading “rumours and false reports” against the state.
El-Behiri said the accusations levied against the court were “unacceptable” adding that those who have conducted a “campaign of lies” to “assassinate the character and person” of the court and its judges “should not remain safe from accountability and the rule of law any longer than they already have.”
The deputy chairman of Egypt’s highest court also said that “in light of the post he holds in the administration,” the president’s adviser should not have “allowed himself to slip into tarnishing the Egyptian judiciary’s reputation before foreign media.”
Saying that the court had preferred to remain “outside the circle of rivalry and conflict,” el-Behiri added that the presidential adviser should have “ensured accuracy” before “casting accusations at random individuals.”
“Words are a matter of honour, an entrusted charge and a responsibility,” the statement said.
El-Behiri’s statement went on to say that the “ferocious campaign” against the court had “succeeded” in inflaming “hatred, spite and antagonism” against the judicial body and “moving” some “simple folk” to “besiege the court and prevent its judges from attending their sessions and performing their duties undisturbed by security forces."
Defending the SCC’s track record against the accusations of collusion with counterrevolutionary forces, el-Behiri said his court had “taken the initiative” to “implement and recognise” the constitutional declaration of March 30 2011. The court, he said, based its judgments over the past two years on the document which had been approved in referendum “in order to preserve the revolution’s gains.”
“The Supreme Constitutional Court,” the statement concluded, “will forever live on in its nations’ conscience regardless of what it happens to it and regardless of the size of the losses, dangers and sacrifices that have and will hit it, with its loyalty always to the people, the constitution, law, justice and legitimacy.”