Egypt presidency's legal team to be unveiled soon: Sources

Ahram Online , Wednesday 1 May 2013

President's legal advisory team will likely include several Muslim Brotherhood figures, according to informed source quoted by Turkish news agency

The Egyptian presidency will announce members of its legal and judicial consulting teams "within days," an informed source close to the presidency told Turkish news agency Anadolu on Wednesday.

According to the source, the team will include 16 academics and law professors, along with judges from different courts including Egypt's High Administrative Court.

The source also said the president's legal advisory team would include Abdel-Moneim Abdel-Maksoud, a Muslim Brotherhood lawyer and member of Egypt's National Human Rights Council; and Mohamed Tosoun, a Muslim Brotherhood representative in Egypt's Shura Council (the upper house of parliament, currently endowed with legislative powers).

The source also mentioned Ramadan Bateekh, former member of Egypt's Constituent Assembly (which drafted the country's new constitution) and constitutional law professor at Cairo's Ain Shams University, as a possible appointee to the president's legal team.

A final decision has been delayed, however, said the source, since some judges have been hesitant to join the president's legal team in light of a months-long crisis between the presidency and judiciary, in addition to an ongoing standoff between judges and the Shura Council due to controversial draft legislation – rejected by many judges – regulating judicial authority.

"The exclusion of legal advisor Mohamed Fouad Gadallah from the president's legal team was the reason why he resigned as the president's legal advisor," the source told Anadolu.

The president's former legal advisor has said that he resigned from the post to protest alleged interference by the presidency in the work of Egypt's judiciary.

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