Egypt's Travails

The legal minds in Egypt are too mired in the nuances and letter-of-the-law they insist on observing to realize that they are being out-smarted by a canny adversarial mind that learns swiftly on the job.  No one expected too much of Mohammed Morsi other than as a flabby-minded front for the Muslim Brotherhood, but now it's difficult to determine who is leading whom...?

On the other hand, one can only wonder whether the president's decree that has placed him, his party and their joint intentions above the law would have been put out there to contest the peoples' will had he been able to anticipate the outcry and defiance it would bring to the fore.  Most Egyptians seemed prepared to settle for what they got in the election that brought the Brotherhood and the Salafists to power, that they could tough it out and hope for the best.

Now, it seems the best they can tough out is too tough for them to grin and bear it.  While hopes were pinned on a gradual evolution that would bring more freedoms and respect to the fore, along with an enhanced economy with the usual investors abroad reassured that deposing Hosni Mubarak didn't spell the end of investment security, the status quo seems to have returned with the vengeance of the recently elected to become as hostile to democracy as possible.

The regime that was forced to surrender to mass protests initiated by poor economic conditions, unemployment and despair in the streets of Cairo and Alexandria has been replaced by a duly elected regime that is emulating and even surpassing the one it took over from.  But not to worry, since President Morsi has been swift to reassure his critics that the decrees he has promulgated are a requirement to protect the "revolution".

After all, the most important thing in the minds of the liberals, the leftists, the minorities, was to democratize the nation.  And so, it was quite necessary to provide the 100-member panel constructed mostly of Islamists with the security they require to draft the new constitution without fear of being once again assailed by the courts.

Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court thought it was playing hardball when it stated it planned to proceed with its intention to rule on whether to dissolve the assembly writing up the new constitution, but in so doing they gave away the game.  The Islamists so busy over the past months constructing that shiny new constitution for Egypt have sped up their game, going all out to present a fait accompli before Sunday.

And their determination to enshrine Sharia law in the most populous of Arab countries will proceed on their accelerated schedule; game over.  Muslim clerics may gain oversight over legislation, bringing restrictions to bear on freedom of speech, women's rights and other liberties that the original protesters had agitated to achieve.  The more things change the more mired they are in sameness.

The assembly has put their collective nose to the grindstone for completion of the 230-article draft in an amazing time warp.  And they've had the freedom to do so unobstructed by protests from those liberal, secular and Christian members who had a minority presence on the panel, since in their great wisdom they chose to withdraw in protest of the Islamists' hijacking of the process.

As though Egypt hasn't enough problems.  The country's highest appeal courts went on strike in protest of the presidential decree.  Judges insist they will not return to work until the president rescinds those decrees.  "This is the highest form of protest", said Nasser Amin, head of the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession, refusing to believe that Morsi's bid for the buck to stop with him will become law.

So the courts are temporarily in high dudgeon, virtually moribund, and so is the economy, while crime runs its course fairly unimpeded in a one-size-fits-all frame of reference; if the president of the country can take the law into his own hands, why not every petty criminal roaming the streets if the mood takes them, when the time to strike seems right?

President Morsi is promising a nationwide referendum "very soon", to ratify the draft, to bring it into law through due process.  Absent the Supreme Constitutional Court input.  End run on an end run.