Tahani al-Gebali ( ar, تهاني الجبالي; 20 November 1950 – 9 January 2022) was an Egyptian judge and a past Vice President of the
Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt
The Supreme Constitutional Court ( ar, المحكمة الدستورية العليا, ''Al Mahkama Al Dustūrīya El ‘Ulyā'') is an independent judicial body in Egypt, located in the Cairo suburb of Maadi.
The Supreme Constitutional Court i ...
.
Biography
In 2003, she was appointed to office by President
Hosni Mubarak
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, (; 4 May 1928 – 25 February 2020) was an Egyptian politician and military officer who served as the fourth president of Egypt from 1981 to 2011.
Before he entered politics, Mubarak was a career officer in t ...
, becoming the first woman to hold a judiciary position in Egypt, and she remained the only female on the bench until 32 other Egyptian women were appointed to various judicial positions in 2007.
In July 2012, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' wrote that Supreme Constitutional Court Vice President Tahani al-Gebali advised the
Supreme Council of the Armed Forces
The Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF; ar, المجلس الأعلى للقوات المسلحة, ', also Higher Council of the Armed Forces) is a statutory body of between 20 and 25 senior Egyptian military officers and is headed by Fi ...
not to
cede power to civilians until a
constitution was written. This was denied by Judge al-Gebali, who announced she would sue the newspaper.
Al-Gebali died from
COVID-19
Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...
on 9 January 2022, at the age of 71.
See also
*
List of first women lawyers and judges in Africa
This is a list of the first women lawyer(s) and judge(s) in Africa. It includes the year in which the women were admitted to practice law (in parentheses). Also included are the first women in their country to achieve a certain distinction such as ...
References
1950 births
2022 deaths
Egyptian women judges
People from Tanta
Cairo University alumni
Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Egypt
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