Egyptian female judge Radwa Helmy was among the Administrative Court’s panel on Saturday for the first time in its history after it was limited to male judges.
It comes in implementation of a decision issued by President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi in October to appoint 98 female judges to the State Council.
Secretary-General of the State Council Taha Karso said the female judges underwent an advanced training programme with the National Training Academy and the Studies Centre of the State Council due to the importance of being familiar with judicial skills and the mechanisms of judicial work, integrating with male colleagues in different departments, and familiarising themselves with the methodology and flow of the work in the coming period.
He also said that the past five months were a chance for these female judges to accumulate experiences to sit on the podium and settle disputes between the state and citizens.
However, Egyptian women are still absent from the civil and criminal justice platforms, although they have struggled for decades to establish their presence there.
Egypt’s first female judge, Tahani Al-Gabali, was appointed in 2003 to the Constitutional Court and remained in her position for nearly 10 years before she was dismissed after late president Mohamed Morsi took power in mid-2012. Since then, no female judge has sat on the bench.
Head of the National Council for Women Maya Morsi declared that “5 March has become a new historic day in the life of Egyptian women.”
Egyptian law does not prevent women from assuming judicial posts, however, the custom has been to save such positions for men.
