883.0513/139: Telegram
The Minister in Egypt ( Fish ) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 23—3 p.m.]
35. My telegram No. 33, June 17, 6 p.m. Acting Judicial Adviser Payne informed me today that in a conversation with the Minister of Justice the latter had stated that in selecting an American successor to Judge Crabitès the Egyptian Government might revert to the procedure followed before 1910 when the candidate was selected on the initiative of the Egyptian Government and the name submitted to the interested governments for approval. Payne added that in the case of the last judge appointed, a Belgian, to fill a temporary vacancy created by the assignment of a Belgian judge to the Code Commission for 2 years, the Egyptian Government followed the procedure now suggested but in his opinion this did not necessarily establish a precedent as the Belgian appointment was not a substantive one.
Payne stated that before formulating the attitude of the Judicial Adviser’s office to the suggestion of the Egyptian Minister he desired to obtain my reaction to the proposed procedure. While the exact procedure is not fixed in the charter of the Mixed Courts, article 5 thereof indubitably establishes the right of the government of the appointee to approve the appointment (see page 370 [371] of Brinton’s Mixed Courts9).
Please instruct by telegraph.
- Jasper Yeates Brinton, The Mixed Courts of Egypt (New Haven, Yale University Press, 1930).↩