Egypt: Concern over judicial reforms bill

Leandro Despouy, the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights' Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, on Friday expressed "serious concern" over a recently passed Egyptian judicial reforms bill. Despouy urged Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak not to sign the law, but instead to send the bill back to parliament for "re-discussion ... with the full participation of the Judges' Club and experts in constitutional law, in order to allow the Parliament to adopt a considerably improved version of the law which guarantees the proper functioning of an independent judiciary."