The Judges Club board and members of the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) are meeting at the High Court in Cairo to discuss whether they will take part in the judicial reform conference called for by President Mohamed Morsi.

Judges Club head Ahmed El-Zend is to hold a press conference on Tuesday afternoon to announce his stance on the matter.

The conference, whose first preparatory session will begin on Tuesday at the presidential palace in Cairo, was proposed by senior judges during a meeting with President Morsi on Sunday.

The president met with judges in a bid to defuse a dispute over a controversial judicial reform bill.

El-Zend asserted that the Judges Club was not invited to take part in Tuesday's conference.

He also raised doubts about the efficacy of the conference because senior judges from the country's top judicial bodies will not be in attendance.

El-Zend said recent moves by the executive authorities were an interference in judicial affairs

The draft bill, which would lower the retirement age of judges from 70 to 60, has been strongly censured by judicial figures and critics on the grounds that it will make up to 3,000 judges redundant.

Morsi's Islamist allies proposed the law with the ostensible aim of cleansing the judiciary of corrupt judges. However, opponents say the move is part of a general Brotherhood strategy of inserting Islamist sympathisers into senior positions in the state bureaucracy.