The specialists

Two months into their establishment, the economic courts have yet to show their true colours, Nesmahar Sayed sounds market reactions

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"This is a very good initiative," Mohamed Samir, managing partner at Samir and Darwish Law Firm, Legal Advisers, told Al-Ahram Weekly, referring to the newly established economic courts. "This step will help reduce the time a case spends in court before a ruling is made."

Economic courts were created by virtue of Law 120/2008, issued last May. The aim behind the law is to establish courts specialised in reviewing economic cases.

Businessman and Chairman of the Egyptian- Moroccan Business Council Al-Yamani Felfela also welcomed the establishment of these courts, explaining that investors have been demanding they be set up for years. For one, Felfela himself has cases of his own that have been awaiting a verdict in the Supreme Court for three years. He hopes the new courts will mean that disputes will be settled faster. "Time to investors means money," he said.

Delays were bad news for Egypt as a whole too. Felfela said frequent delays in dispute settlement were among the main factors discouraging investors from tapping into the Egyptian economy. "The period from the hearing to reaching a verdict in the courts should not exceed two years," he stressed.

Time-saving is not the only advantage to these new courts, according to Adel El-Shorbagui, deputy chief of the Supreme Court. "These courts serve in creating judges that specialise in economic issues," El-Shorbagui said. He believes that the line-up of cases that need review by courts is partially to be blamed on the lawyers themselves.

For his part Samir agrees with El-Shorbagui on this point, and added there should be severe punishment for lawyers who don't do their work correctly, "by making the judge read hundreds of pages written to defend their clients while these could be briefed down to just dozens," Samir said.

Farouk Darwish, senior partner at Samir and Darwish Law Firm believes that the violation of law in the streets is a result of the slow settlement system. This is because of lawyers' inefficiency and a shortage in the number of judges, in comparison with the number of cases up for review. In fact, as former judge Moataz El-Sheikh says, used to review as many as 250 cases daily.

To avoid this problem in the economic courts, a preparation board has been established as a way to save judges' time and effort, says Samir. The board hears the various parties in conflict and attempts to arbitrate. If an agreement is not reached, then the documents are presented to the jury for review. One of the important aspects of this board according to the law is that it takes into consideration the opinion of specialists listed by the Ministry of Justice.

According to both Samir and Darwish, the courts will succeed if the judges are well- trained. If procedures are carried out correctly, then the law would have achieved its target of making Egypt's jury system "a quick and efficient one", Samir told the Weekly. He added that the success these courts will achieve will no doubt save investors much money, because by reverting to commercial arbitration, as was the norm before these courts were created, investors incurred a lot of expenses.

As such, specialisation and continuity are the two angles that guarantee the success of these courts according to Hossam Lutfi, professor of civil law at Beni Sweif University. "As long as judges are not specialised, the change will be just in form but not in content," Lutfi emphasised.

Mohamed Fouad, lawyer with the National Bank of Development for 19 years, believes that even within the economic courts, more focussed specialisations are needed such as banking experts, who have deeper knowledge and awareness of the banking system.

Fouad also lamented the fact that the new law is being applied with retroactive effect. "After having waited in the regular court system for years and were about to be given a verdict, many cases will now be referred to the economic courts, which means they will be further delayed," Fouad said. He suggests that only disputes that have risen following the issuance of the law should be referred to economic courts.

Laila Bahaaeddin, a senior lawyer at Al-Shalakani Law Firm, agrees with Fouad, saying that this will lead to the unconstitutionality of the law. She says that there is a principle that no law should be applied retroactively.

Moreover, Bahaaeddin noted that these courts do not treat cases equally. According to the law, litigations less than LE5 million in value are reviewed twice, once before the primary court, and then before the Court of Appeal. Cases that exceed that amount are reviewed only once in front of the Court of Appeal.

One of the advantages Bahaaeddin finds in this law is the fact that 11 female judges have been appointed to the economic courts' staff. "They are so enthusiastic and do their best to prove they are worthy of their new responsibility," she said.

But not everyone is as enthusiastic about the new courts. Hisham Abu Alam, a judge in the Supreme Court, does not believe that having specialised courts is the solution to everything, otherwise "we will need to create a specialised court for each crime." In his opinion, what the jury system in Egypt needs is an amendment of procedures and more independence.