With the Muslim Brotherhood gaining an unprecedented amount of seats in this month’s parliamentary elections, the authorities in Egypt clamped down to the point of surrounding polling stations with riot police and knifing down voters. These voters, in turn, went as far as using ladders to sneak into polling stations so as to simply cast a ballot. But there is another group that factors into this electoral equation: judges, who are at every turn ruling against the regime on a number of electoral issues. In this case, the court has decided that NGOs can monitor the electoral process through video feeds, therefore circumventing government arguments that polling places are too small and insecure for the monitors.

Independent poll monitors will be able to watch ballot counting by closed-circuit television cameras in all future Egyptian elections, a court ruled on Saturday.

Election monitors have complained of difficulty gaining access to polling and counting stations during Egypt’s violence-marred parliamentary elections, which began Nov. 9 and will end with a third round runoff on Dec. 7.

Monitoring groups charge that police beat opposition supporters and blocked polling places after the first round runoff, which saw a surprisingly strong showing by Egypt’s banned Muslim Brotherhood.

Many monitors were refused entry to counting stations and barred from polling places in violation of court orders.

The Arab Center for Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession, an association of judges and lawyers, sued for installation of the cameras.

Ruling for the center, the administrative court said cameras would help ensure a cleaner election.

This is part of the ongoing ” judicial rebellion” in the country, in which the courts have repeatedly ruled against the government’s policies. Their actions have included protesting in the thousands against government influence over the judiciary, a boycott of the May constitutional referendum, simultaneously ruling that NGOs be allowed to directly monitor the vote, and that the judiciary be allowed the supervise the counting of the votes.

It seems to me that while the Mubarak government is intent on making political reform simply a spectator sport, and with the Muslim Brotherhood representing a slightly scary alternative, the formation of a strong and independent judiciary — though a long way off — with the power to enforce its rulings would be the best step toward greater democracy that Egypt could make. It would limit the power of whoever governs the country at any point in time, whether it be the current authoritarian NDP or the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood. With the liberal parties pretty much out of the contest, the establishment of the rule of law applied fairly across the board would provide the best conditions possible for their future flourishing.