NCW president hails Sisi’s decision hiring female judges in State Council

CAIRO – 10 March 2021:  President of National Council of Women [NCW], Maya Morsi hailed Wednesday President Abdel Fattah el Sisi for believing in the need to empower Egyptian women in all fields.

"President Sisi has made the dream of every woman for 72 years come true," Morsi wrote on Facebook, commenting on the president's decision to hire women in the Supreme Judiciary Council and the State Council.

Marking the Women’s international day, President Sisi directed Minister of Justice Omar Marwan to coordinate with the heads of the Supreme Judicial Council and the State Council for hiring women at the two legal agencies.

The move comes to fully activate the constitutional entitlement to equality and non-discrimination, confirm the women’s competence in assuming various positions, as well as to maximize the successes achieved by them in all fields they work in, the Ministry of Justice said in a statement, Monday.

The statement noted that the justice ministry has started procedures to implement President Sisi’s directives as soon as possible.

Egyptian female judges have consistently fought to assume top positions, and one of the major steps was taken in 2003 by appointing Tahani al-Gebali as the vice president of the Constitutional Court.

Also, in July 2019, judge Fatima Qandil was the first woman to sit at a judge’s panel in an Egyptian criminal court, in another milestone for female judges. But the State Council and the Supreme Judicial Council, however, remained a male-only domain.

Article 190 of the 2014 constitution states that “the State Council is an independent judicial body that is exclusively competent to adjudicate in administrative disputes, disciplinary cases and appeals, and disputes pertaining to its decisions. It also solely competent to issue opinions on the legal issues of bodies to be determined by law, review and draft bills and resolutions of a legislative character, and review draft contracts to which the state or any public entity is a party. Other competencies are to be determined by law.”