This week, Egypt’s parliament rushed to approve, “in principle,” a government proposed draft bill to replace the country’s 1950 Criminal Procedure Code.
The Lawyers’ Syndicate, the Journalists’ Syndicate, human rights organizations including Human Rights Watch, political parties, and United Nations independent experts have all expressed strong opposition to the draft. Rather than rushing the draft—discussed mostly secretively by a parliamentary subcommittee for months—through the overwhelmingly pro-government parliament before the current session ends, authorities should listen to Egyptian people and civil society.
The current Criminal Procedure Code has enabled prosecutors and judges to keep people in pretrial detention for months or years without proper court hearings or evidence of wrongdoing. It also lacks, together with the penal code, sufficient definitions and penalties for widespread, systematic crimes of torture and enforced disappearance. It is part of a collection of abusive and permissive laws that have allowed the government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to turn the judicial system into a tool of mass repression. Since 2013, tens of thousands of critics and dissidents have been arbitrarily detained and prosecuted, and some have been killed in custody.
An initial analysis of the draft bill found it fails to introduce serious reforms to the Criminal Procedure Code, but rather empowers prosecutors vis a vis judges and perpetuates security forces’ unchecked powers.
Despite repeated promises by officials, including President Sisi, to address abusive pretrial detention, the draft only slightly shortens the maximum period for pretrial detention. It fails to uphold Egypt’s international obligations to ensure pretrial detention is used only as an exception, rather than the rule, and that every detainee should be swiftly and physically brought before a judge to rule on the legality of their detention. The draft retains prosecutors’ broad, discretionary powers to keep people in pretrial detention for months without judicial review, and does not address the phenomenon of “recycling” through which prosecutors repeatedly charge detainees in new cases with identical charges in order to keep them detained. The draft also severely undermines fair trial principles, including by significantly expanding the use of an abusive videoconference system, which keeps detainees isolated from the outside world, to all hearings.
Widespread opposition to this draft reflects the enduring vitality of Egyptian civil society despite years of repression and iron-fisted rule. The flawed legislation demonstrates that authorities lack any intention to end widespread repression and meaningfully address Egypt’s interlinked political and economic rights crises.
