Egypt's president stands by his decrees Associated Press Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Updated 11:53 a.m., Monday, November 26, 2012 CAIRO (AP) — Egypt's President Mohammed Morsi told the country's top judges Monday that he did not infringe on their authority when he seized near absolute powers, setting the stage for a prolonged showdown on the eve of mass protests planned by both supporters and opponents of the Islamist leader. The president also extended the same immunity to two bodies dominated by his Islamist allies — a panel drafting a new constitution and parliament's mostly toothless upper chamber. Morsi, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who became Egypt's first freely elected president in June, was quoted by Ali as telling his prime minister and security chiefs earlier Monday that his decrees were designed to "end the transitional period as soon as possible." The dispute is the latest crisis to roil the Arab world's most populous nation, which has faced mass protests, a rise in crime and economic woes since the initial euphoria following the popular uprising that ousted Mubarak after nearly 30 years of autocratic rule. Morsi's decrees, which were announced Thursday, saved the constitutional panel and the upper chamber from a fate similar to that of the People's Assembly because several courts looking into the legal basis of their creation were scheduled to issue verdicts to disband them. Ayman al-Sayyad, a member of Morsi's 17-member advisory council, said the presidential aides asked the president in meetings over the weekend to negotiate a way out of the crisis and enter dialogue with all political forces to iron out differences over the nation's new constitution. Thousands gathered in Damanhoor for the funeral procession of 15-year-old Islam Abdel-Maksoud, who was killed Sunday when a group of anti-Morsi protesters tried to storm the local offices of the political arm of the president's fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt's most powerful political group.