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3 J. Comp. L. 234 (2008)
Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court: Managing Constitutional Conflict in an Authoritarian, Aspirationally Islamic State

handle is hein.journals/jrnatila3 and id is 593 raw text is: Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court Egypt's Supreme Constitutional Court: Managing Constitutional Conflict in an Authoritarian, Aspirationally 'Islamic' State CLARK B. LOMBARDI * Constitutional review in the Egyptian legal system is today carried out by a special constitutional court.' This court is the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt, often referred to by its acronym, the SCC. It is an important example of a puzzling phenomenon-a liberal court that is permitted to operate, at least for a time, in an authoritarian regime. Studying this Court helps us understand why such courts are created. It also helps to demonstrate the fragility of such institutions, once they emerge. The SCC is Egypt's first effective institution of judicial review. Ironically enough, it owes its existence to an authoritarian regime's fear of independent judicial review. After the judiciary in Egypt asserted the right to exercise judicial review, the government of Jamal Abd al-Nasir feared it would exercise review in a manner uncongenial to the regime. The Nasir regime thus decided to take judicial review out of the hands of the judiciary and put it, instead, in the hands of a special constitutional court that he intended to control. The decision to create a constitutional court, however, had unexpected consequences. Nasir's successor, Anwar al-Sadat, modified the structure of the new constitutional court-retaining control over appointments, but giving it more independence. He also renamed it the Supreme Constitutional Court. Sadat's reform of the constitutional court coincided with a period of activism among the Egyptian bar and judiciary. The spirit of the age affected the new court. After a quiet first decade of operation, the SCC in the 1990s defied the wishes of the Egyptian president and became a liberal activist institution that was often in open confrontation with the executive. More surprising still, during * Associate Professor of Law, University of Washington School of Law, Carnegie Scholar 2006. The author is grateful to the University of Washington and the Carnegie Corporation for research support. The author thanks Greta Austin, Michael Feener, Andrew Harding, Victor Ramraj, Arun Thiruvengadam and some other generous friends for invaluable comments. Statements made and views expressed are those of the author and all errors are solely his responsibility. I Transliterations follow the International Journal of Middle East Studies (IJMES) -without macrons for long vowels or dots under letters such as the aspirated 'h'. 234 JCL 3:2

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