Egypt's newly installed Islamist President Muhammad Mursi has lost little time in turning a battle of wills with the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) over his inauguration into a potentially bruising constitutional confrontation over SCAF's 15 June decision to dissolve parliament (after the Supreme Constitutional Court – SCC – ruled that its election had been unconstitutional). Mr Mursi waited a week after taking office on 30 June before summoning the dissolved parliament into session on 8 July with the announcement that he had ″ordered the reconvening of sessions of the elected parliament." This act of defiance caused SCAF to meet on the same day to "study and discuss the repercussions of President Mursi's decision to reconvene parliament" – as the MENA news agency put it – and the next day SCAF defended its decision to dissolve parliament as "an executive decision implementing the ruling of the SCC" and said that it "was confident all institutions of state will respect constitutional decrees."

On 10 July SCC judge Mahir al-Beheiry announced that "the court ruled to halt the president's decision to recall the parliament," but parliament went ahead and convened regardless, to be told by speaker Sa'd al-Katatni that "I invited you to convene in accordance with the decree issued by the president. I would like you to confirm that the presidential decree does not violate the court order." That was apparently an opinion shared by the president, since the next day Mr Mursi claimed that he was "committed to the rulings of Egyptian judges and very keen to manage state powers and prevent any confrontation," and that "there will be consultations among all political forces, institutions and the supreme council of judicial authorities to find the best way out of this situation in order to overcome this stage together." It will require considerable political skill for Mr Mursi to persuade these disparate interest groups to cooperate in finding a solution to Egypt's current political and constitutional conflicts, particularly since his own supporters may be unwilling to allow him too much room for maneuver.

One senior Brotherhood official, Mahmud Ghuzlan, was probably only reflecting a widely held view when he said on 10 July that the SCC "is part of a power struggle between the military council and the president who represents the people and in which the military council is using the law and the judiciary to impose its will."