Mursi to meet judges over power grab

 Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi meets senior judges on Monday to try to defuse a crisis over his seizure of new powers which has set off violent protests .

 The justice minister said he believed Mursi would agree with the country’s highest judicial authority on its proposal to limit the scope of the new powers.

But the protesters, some camped in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, have said only retracting the decree will satisfy them, a sign of the deep rift between Islamists and their opponents that is destabilizing Egypt two years after Hosni Mubarak was ousted,according to Reuters.

“There is no use amending the decree,” said Tarek Ahmed, 26, a protester who stayed the night in Tahrir, where tents covered the central traffic circle. “It must be scrapped.”

One person has been killed and about 370 injured in clashes between police and protesters since Mursi issued the decree on Thursday shielding his decisions from judicial review.

The stock market is down more than 7 percent.

Mursi’s political opponents have accused him of behaving like a dictator and the West has voiced its concern, worried by more turbulence in Egypt.

Mursi’s administration has defended his decree as an effort to speed up reforms and complete a democratic transformation. Leftists, liberals, socialists and others say it has exposed the autocratic impulses of a man once jailed by Mubarak.

Mursi’s office said he would meet Egypt’s highest judicial authority, the Supreme Judicial Council, on Monday, and the council hinted at compromise.

Mursi’s decree should apply only to “sovereign matters”, it said, suggesting it did not reject the declaration outright, and called on judges and prosecutors, some of whom began a strike Justice Minister Ahmed Mekky, speaking about the council statement, said: “I believe President Mohamed Mursi wants that.”

A group of lawyers and activists have also challenged Mursi’s decree in an administrative court, which said it would hold its first hearing on December 4. Other decisions by Mursi have faced similar legal challenges brought to court by opponents.

Banners in Tahrir called for dissolving the assembly drawing up a constitution.

Only once a constitution is written can a new parliamentary election be held. Until then, legislative and executive power remains in Mursi’s hands, and Thursday’s decree puts his decisions above judicial oversight.

Talks with Mursi have been rejected by members of a National Salvation Front, a new opposition coalition that brings together liberal, leftist and other politicians and parties, who until Mursi’s decree had been a fractious bunch struggling to unite.

“There is no room for dialogue when a dictator imposes the most oppressive, abhorrent measures and then says ‘let us split the difference’,” prominent opposition leader and Mohamed ElBaradei said on Saturday. He has said he expected to act as the Front’s coordinator.

R.S