Morsi orders retrial of people who were involved in harming Egyptian revolutionary protesters

President Mohammed Morsi, right, swears in his new Prosecutor General, Talaat Abdallah, Photo  AP)


The Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi has issued a decree whereby he ordered a retrial of all those charged with killing or injuring protesters involved in revolutionary demonstrations since the January 25 Revolution, as well as all Mubarak-era officials responsible for terrorising protesters.
Also he gave himself the power to appoint a Prosecutor General for a period of four years. Immediately after issuing the decree he sacked Prosecutor General Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud and installed Talaat Abdallah as his replacement.
The presidential declaration began by stating that the January 25 Revolution ´had mandated the president with the responsibility to achieve revolutionary demands and to root out remnants of the old regime from Egypt's state institutions´. Apparently the decree is Morsi´s reaction to complaints that many police officers and others who had bee accused of killing a harming revolutionaries during the protests, have been acquitted in the past months. A similar problem is the fact that still many functionaries from the Mubarak-era are to be foun in key positions, particularly in the Interior ministry and the  state security. 
Another article decreed that the Constitutional Assembly that is writing a new Constitution gets two more months in order the accomplish its task. Originally the Constitution had to be finished by 5 December.
Also the president determined that no judicial body can dissolve the Constitutional Assembly or the Shura Coucil, and that all of the presidents decrees cannot be legally challenged or appealed until the Constitution has been approved and a new Maglis as-shaab (lower house of parliament) has been elected. 
Morsi´s  spokesman Yasser Ali told Al-Ahram Online that the decree in no way is meant to pave the way for a reinstatement of the former Maglis as-shaab which had been disbanded in July, but solely wants to put an end to legal wrangling and create stability.