CAIRO, May 11 (Aswat Masriya) - Egypt's former vice president Mohamed ElBaradei addressed the absence of the "concept of justice" in Egypt early Monday, following controversial statements made by the justice minister.

"When the concept of justice is absent from a nation, nothing remains," ElBaradei tweeted.

In a television interview aired late Sunday, Justice Minister Mahfouz Saber said that the son of a garbage collector cannot become a judge.

"With all due respect to the garbage collector, and anyone else beneath him or above him, it is necessary for the environmental medium where a judge grows to be suitable," Saber said.

The minister stressed that if a garbage collector works as a judge, he will suffer from depression and other problems and "will not continue." He added that this is based on prior experience.

"With all due respect to all the general public, a judge has his highness and position, he must come from a respectable medium, both financially and morally," Saber said.

In his tweet, ElBaradei referred to the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights which preserves the citizens' right to public work.

The former vice president resigned from his position in less than two months, in protest over the state's deadly dispersal of two pro-Mohamed Mursi sit-ins in August 2013.

Activists have launched a campaign on social media calling for the resignation of the justice minister in reaction to his latest statements.