Khaled Ali: Labor's politics and judicialization intermingled Al-Masry Al-Youm
Ali was the one who litigated the case, bringing about what many have considered a major victory in a country marred by double digit inflation with nearly half of its population surfacing around or below the poverty line and the minimum wage at LE36.But after 16 years of practicing law in Egypt, Ali has come to understand the limitations of “judicial achievement.”
“Without strong political mobilization behind a certain demand, a lawsuit, even if it is won in courtrooms, could end up being a mere dossier of papers with only symbolic value,” says the 38-year-old lawyer who made headlines on 30 March when he won a verdict by a Cairo administrative court ordering the government to activate the National Council for Wages, a body tasked with balancing the minimum wage against rising consumer prices.
Translating a court order into a tangible reality is seldom an easy endeavor, Ali says.
Last December, Ali, the director of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights (ECESR), obtained a ruling to lift restrictions on the Engineers' Syndicate. He argued the case on behalf of Engineers Against Sequestration, a group of engineers who have been rallying to lift the custody imposed on their syndicate by the government since 1995 on allegations that it was controlled by the banned Muslim Brotherhood.
