HEAD of Egypt's Bar Association Hamdi Khalifa yesterday called for crafting a way to defuse tensions between lawyers and judges that erupted after two lawyers were convicted for assaulting a prosecutor in the Delta town of Tanta. "Until this moment, the lawyers are committed not to escalating the matter. We are behaving according to the law, and the lawyers are practising self-restraint. However, the Bar Association cannot predict what will happen next if the tension persists," Khalifa told reporters after talks with Ahmed Fathi Sorour, the Speaker of the people's Assembly (the Lower House of the Egyptian Parliament). Sorour and Khalifa discussed for the second time in less than a week the crisis between lawyers and judges, which is escalating after lawyers Ehab Saa'i and Moustafa Fattouh were jailed for five years after convicted of assaulting prosecutor Bassem Abul Roos. "The way out of this crisis lies in laying down regulations and rules to govern the relations between lawyers and judges,” Khalifa said. Sorour was set to hold talks with Ahmed el-Zind, the head of the Judges' Club, an independent judicial union, last night over the crisis. "If these efforts by Sorour fail, the General Assembly of the Bar Association will take a decision on the issue on Wednesday [today]," Khalifa said. Lawyers across Egypt have gone on an open-ended strike to show solidarity with their detained colleagues. They are also collecting signatures from 10,000 lawyers in order to file a lawsuit against the Judges' Club for allegedly insulting the lawyers and describing them as terrorists. Egypt's courts have been in the doldrums as thousands of lawyers have been staying away in protest against the jailing of the two colleagues. Supporters of the two convicted lawyers said the prosecutor, who was not arrested, should have also been charged with assault. A court in Upper Egypt yesterday delayed a hearing session of a high profile case, involving a Christian accused of raping a Muslim girl, after lawyers failed to show up.
