Once again, Egypt's judiciary has returned to being a party to disputes with other parties, in spite of all parties asserting that they acknowledge the independence of the judiciary and submit to its authority. A ruling recently issued by the Supreme Administrative Court granting Coptic divorcees the right to remarry has once again provided the opportunity for the judiciary's rulings to be criticized, even if in a roundabout and indirect way, to avoid falling into legal violations, as Egyptian law forbids criticism of these judicial rulings. However, the objection of the Egyptian Coptic Church to the ruling, and Pope Shenouda III's assertion that he would not allow Coptic divorcees to remarry under any circumstances, has put the issue to the test, and has made the Coptic Church appear as if it has become party to a conflict with the judiciary. Yet what is clear, and has been so for some time, is that Egyptian Law as a whole is in need of revisions to become adequately suited to the nature, circumstances and developments of the age, and that it would be more appropriate and more useful for society for laws that have become obsolete to be cleared away and for the clauses that have caused such controversies to be amended. Otherwise, it would threaten national unity in the country, and would place certain parties in a state of confrontation with other parties, without either having the desire to wage a battle they have found to be imposed on them. At the end of the day, judges do not issue rulings that express their personal opinion on certain issues, but rather implement legal texts, and the margin left to their conscience do not allow them to go against clear-cut texts of law. Thus can be understood rulings that were issued banning books or novels or condemning books or artists. Those have been a cause for controversy and have aroused anger among intellectual elites perhaps no lesser than that of the Copts against the latest ruling. The Egyptian State did well after the ruling was issued to delegitimize Doctor Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd and to separate him from his wife, when it amended Hisbah Law and gave only public prosecutors, not individuals, the right to file Hisbah lawsuits. But the amendment was not sufficient, and the recent crisis has shown, as did the issue of the “Arabian Nights” republication before it, that of poet Hilmi Salem's poem (which caused Ibdaa magazine to be shut down) before that, and many cases before them, that overlooking the necessity of amending some of the laws will drive the country from one crisis to the next… Unless what is happening is sought-after to keep people busy away from other more important issues. Yesterday, the Copts demonstrated in Egypt in protest of the Supreme Administrative Court's ruling, while at the same time newspapers quoted other Copts supporting the ruling, having been unable to get married after obtaining their divorce! Thus the problem of crisis-causing laws will not just affect the Coptic Church's stance on the judiciary, but could cause a rift in the unity of the Coptic community itself and place the Church in a state of confrontation with some of those harmed by its stances on the issue of remarriage. This is not the first time, and it may not be the last, in which a party is subjected to a non-criminal court ruling. And because the state of politics in the country is not pleasing to many, and there are those who after the experience of the recent Shura Council elections believe that it will never change, other issues have come to attract the opinions of people much more than interest in the exercise of politics or even in following it. Nevertheless, the issue does not interest people out of their love of knowledge, but rather because it affects them and has an impact on their lives. The government and the National Democratic Party (NDP) have justified the constitutional amendments that revoked the judiciary's supervision of every phase of the elections by saying that they aimed at preserving the dignity of judges, so as not to place them in a state of confrontation with the candidates or the voters, and that settling for the presence of a judge in general committees but not polling stations would guarantee judicial supervision, even if limited, but protect judges from political games. Is there no contradiction there?!
