One year ago, Egyptians went to the polls to vote on a constitutional
amendment that would allow multiple candidate presidential elections for the
first time.

While this amendment was hailed by the Egyptian government and its
supporters as the beginning of a new era of democratic reforms, it was
criticized by opposition parties and civil society organizations as being no
more than a cosmetic act providing an illusion of political pluralism.

One of the reasons for this skepticism was that the restrictions placed on
potential candidates were such that no one, other than President Hosni
Mubarak, would qualify. (In order to diffuse criticism, the government eased
these impossible conditions for the first election, which is the only reason
a presidential vote was held in 2005.)

On the day the referendum took place, protesters peacefully opposing the
amendment were beaten up by government agents under the watchful eyes of the
Egyptian police. Six months later, local and international observers
reported widespread voting irregularities and fraud in the three stages of
the parliamentary elections. The days of the elections were replete with
scenes of violence and mayhem perpetrated by state agents to intimidate
voters and scare them away from the ballot box. The violence culminated in
the death of at least 11 citizens.

Fast forward to this month: The government-dominated parliament has approved
the extension of the 25-year-old emergency law. The regime says this law is
needed to combat terrorism, but anyone with a passing interest in Egyptian
politics can easily observe how the regime has used it to silence and
persecute its opponents.

Yet, one ray of hope remains: the “revolution of the judges.” Since the
early 1990s, through their official association, judges have demanded
complete independence from the executive branch of the government. They have
presented a bill that will draw the lines between the executive and
judiciary branches. Their demands were met by postponement.

In 2000, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled that any parliamentary
elections should be fully supervised and managed by the judiciary in
accordance with the Egyptian constitution. The government used this ruling
as propaganda to add legitimacy to the constitutional referendum and last
year’s parliamentary elections; in a public report issued in July of 2005,
however, the judges challenged the figures in officially reported results
and claimed that the judiciary supervision during the referendum was not
implemented in any effective way.

Following the December parliamentary vote, a few outspoken judges demanded
an open investigation into incidents of election fraud and reiterated their
demands for full judiciary supervision over the election process. In an
unprecedented, illegal and government-driven move, two high-ranking judges,
Mahmoud Mekki and Hisham Bastawisi, were referred to a disciplinary
committee and accused of dishonouring the judiciary by speaking out against
fraud, a move that Amnesty International described as "a challenge to
judicial independence."

In response, the judges’ association called for a sit-in at its headquarters
and demanded the annulment of the decision. A parallel sit-in, outside the
association headquarters, was organized by a broad range of groups and
individuals. Despite arrests and police violence against them, activists and
representatives from across the political spectrum continued to express
their solidarity with the judges.

On May 11, the day of the first hearing of the disciplinary committee, state
police crushed the peaceful protests, clearly indicating that any voice
seeking reform will be punished. Hundreds of activists, from the Muslim
Brotherhood to young liberal bloggers, were dragged and beaten, then
imprisoned under the auspices of the emergency law. Journalists were also
attacked and prevented from covering the events of the disciplinary trial
and the demonstrations. A week later, the disciplinary committee decided to
acquit Judge Mekki and to reprimand Judge Bastawisi, who suffered a heart
attack the night of the hearing and could not attend. The same scenes of
violence and arrests were repeated.

The fact that Judge Mekki and Judge Bastawisi, who are both vice-presidents
of the Court of Cassation, have been presented to a disciplinary committee
simply for criticizing the electoral process that the judiciary is
officially responsible for overseeing shows how reluctant the Egyptian
government is in pursuing democratic reform. All the judges demanded,
through their association, was to investigate election fraud and to present
a bill to parliament guaranteeing the independence of the judiciary.

A year after the cosmetic constitutional amendment, the political scene in
Egypt has not changed. The emergency law still prevails, and is used against
democratic dissent, not terrorism. The regime is still trying to silence all
criticism.

Fortunately, Egyptians — inside and outside Egypt — are reacting to this
situation, and a worldwide movement of protest is slowly organizing. This
movement needs the support and encouragement of all those who support
democracy.