Litigation Degree: Second
Case No: Appeal Case No 1487/54 JY
Issuing Court: Supreme Administrative Court
Judgment: Favorable, the plaintiff was readmitted to Al-Azhar University
Subject: Right to Education to Transgender People after Obtaining Legal Gender Recognition
Judgment Date: 2006
Summary:
The plaintiff filed a claim before the Egyptian judiciary to overturn Al-Azhar University’s decision to suspend her after she underwent a sex change procedure from male to female and changed her name from Sayed to Sally. She then retrieved new documents in her new name, which resulted in her suspension from Al-Azhar University. She appealed the university president’s decision to the Supreme Administrative Court, which accepted the appeal and annulled the university president’s decision, who issued a decision to not enroll Sally at the university, but then the court overturned that decision as well. The Court then reversed its decision after the university president’s petition that the plaintiff worked in a nightclub and engaged in immoral acts. However, the plaintiff appealed the court’s decision, but the court rejected the plaintiff’s appeal, but the plaintiff appealed again, 18 years later, the court retracted its decision and obliged Al-Azhar University to re-enroll Sally in the medical faculty.
Facts:
The plaintiff Sally filed a claim before the Egyptian judiciary for reversing the decision of the university administration to suspend her, and re-enroll her at the Women’s Faculty instead of the Men’s Faculty, to match the sex correction procedure that the plaintiff underwent at Zamalek Hospital on 29/1/1988, after she had undergone two to three years of hormonal treatment. The plaintiff subsequently issued a new certificate of enrollment, No. 491, on 11/5/1988. She was also issued a national ID card from the office of Al-Matareyah Civil Registry in Cairo Governorate, No. 112516, on 25/9/1988, as well as a passport in her new name, Sally, and her new sex as female. She was also married on 4/7/1990, and the administration of Al-Azhar University suspended her on 13/4/1988.
Judgment:
The plaintiff appealed against the new Administrative Court decision, which annulled the court’s decision to restrict Sally to Al-Azhar University’s Women’s Faculty of Medicine, on 3/8/2000, but the court rejected the appeal, arguing that a dancer could not be attached to Al-Azhar University. However, after 18 years in 2006, the Administrative Court reviewed its decision after the plaintiff’s further appeal and obliged Al-Azhar University to re-enroll the plaintiff to Al-Azhar University’s Women’s Faculty of Medicine. In its judgment, the Court stated that the plaintiff had a constitutional right to education that could not be prevented by any entity because it was an inherent right of citizens and that the plaintiff as a female had the right to education as guaranteed by the Constitution.