First female judge to preside over a hearing before Egypt’s highest court

First female judge to preside over a hearing before Egypt’s highest court

CAIRO: Radwa Helmi made history on Saturday as the first woman judge to sit on the bench of Egypt’s State Council, a top court in the Arab country. Helmi, making her appearance in a Cairo courthouse, was among 98 women appointed last year to join the council, one of Egypt’s main judicial bodies, following a decision by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi. “The 5th of March has become a new historical day for Egyptian women,” said the head of the National Council for Women (NCW), Maya Mursi. The move came ahead of the March 8 International Women’s Day. Women in Egypt, the most populous Arab country, have been fighting an uphill battle for years to secure their rights. Egypt has hundreds of women lawyers but it took decades for one to move up the judicial ladder and become a judge. The first was Tahany Al-Gebaly, appointed in 2003 to Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court. Gebaly held that post for a decade before being removed in 2012 by then president Muhammad Mursi. Although no law bars women from being justices in Egypt, the judiciary in the conservative Muslim-majority country has traditionally been a male preserve. The State Council was set up in 1946