An influential group of Egyptian judges says it will not oversee a December 15 referendum on a new constitution, a move that could undermine the legitimacy of the charter supported by the nation's Islamist president.
In a statement published Sunday by state news agency MENA, the Judges Club said its members unanimously agreed to boycott the referendum, a voting process that Egyptian judges usually supervise.
Many Egyptian judges went on strike last month to protest President Mohammed Morsi's decree barring courts from challenging his decisions. The judges of Egypt's top court joined them on Sunday, saying they have suspended their work indefinitely because of what they called "psychological and physical pressures."
The judges said they were afraid to enter the Supreme Constitutional Court for a Sunday session in the midst of a rally by hundreds of Islamists outside the building. Mr. Morsi's aides said the protest was peaceful. Many Islamists complain that the top court is biased against them because its judges were appointed by Hosni Mubarak, the longtime anti-Islamist president ousted last year in a popular uprising.
The Supreme Constitutional Court had planned to issue rulings that could have dissolved two Islamist-controlled assemblies -- the panel that drafted the new constitution and the upper house of parliament.