Issue No.588
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30 May - 5 June 2002 Issue No.588 Home news |
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 | Recommend this page | ||
Anti-normalisation in court
A legal bid to close down the Israeli Consulate in Alexandria was thrown out of court, reports Khaled Dawoud
The Administrative Court in Alexandria has rejected a case filed by 25 people demanding the immediate closure of the coastal city's Israeli consulate and the deportation of the consul. The case was mounted by a group that included lawyers, members of parliament, civil servants and university students.
While strongly condemning Israel's most recent aggression against the Palestinians, the court said in its verdict last week that it did not have jurisdiction in such matters. Such a decision, it said, was the purview of the president alone, according to the constitution.
Following Israel's launch of its Defensive Shield operation in which it reoccupied the entire West Bank starting 29 March, Alexandria witnessed some of the most heated anti-Israel demonstrations, especially by university students. Amid such feelings, an Alexandrian civil servant, Ibrahim Hashem, and lawyer Ahmed Attia, filed the case, saying that the very presence of the Israeli consul "threatened public security and fuelled public anger, especially among university students." The case was widely supported by public figures in Alexandria, and 23 people added their names to the petition.
Severing diplomatic ties with Israel and expelling Israeli diplomats has been a key demand by Egyptian and Jordanian protesters in recent anti-Israel demonstrations. However, both the government and the Alexandria Court said last week that Egypt was required to accept the presence of Israeli diplomats under the terms of the Egyptian-Israeli Peace Treaty concluded by the two countries in 1979. Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania are the only Arab states that have full diplomatic relations with Israel.
Several similar petitions have been filed in the past by nationalist or Islamist figures opposed to the peace treaty, but they were all dismissed by the courts.
The Alexandria case is significant because the board of legal advisers attached to the Administrative Court recommended accepting the case. The Administrative Court specialises in looking into cases filed against state bodies, but before it hears the cases they are reviewed by the Board of State Council Commissioners. In most instances, Administrative Court judges tend to accept the recommendations made by the board, although they are not binding.
The board of state commissioners said in its report that consuls do not enjoy the same immunity and rights given to diplomats at embassies. It also affirmed the statement made by those who filed the case that keeping the Israeli consulate open provoked public anger and posed a threat to public security. In this regard, the report mentioned the massive demonstrations that took place in Alexandria in protest against Israel's recent attacks. During one such demonstration in early April, a student, Mohamed El-Saqqa, was killed in clashes with riot police.
However, Chief Judge Hussein Sammak rejected the arguments made by the board of state commissioners report.
"The aggression by Israel's occupation army against unarmed Palestinians was beyond imagining... it left in its wake all manner of destruction and spread the scent of death in Jenin, Bethlehem and Ramallah," the judge said, noting also that the Israeli atrocities had "outraged all [Egyptian] citizens, including those who filed the case."
However, Sammak reiterated the government's view that maintaining diplomatic ties with Israel serves the interests of the Palestinian people and leadership. Judge Sammak also noted the government's decision in early April to sever all ties with Israel except diplomatic ones. He said that diplomatic relations allowed Egypt's Foreign Minister Ahmed Maher to visit Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in Ramallah while the Palestinian leader endured a more than month-long Israeli siege, and that it was through diplomatic channels that Maher sent direct messages to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to urge him not to expand his aggression by reoccupying the Gaza Strip.
Adel Eid, an independent member of parliament known for his close ties to Islamists and one of the 23 Alexandrians who joined the petition, said that the group intends to appeal the verdict to the Supreme Administrative Court. "Closing the consulate and deporting the Israeli consul is the minimum the government could do to express solidarity with the Palestinian people under attack," Eid told Al-Ahram Weekly in a telephone interview from his office in Alexandria. He added, "all Arabs are outraged, not only by Israel's barbaric acts, but also by Arab governments' lack of action on the matter."
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