Human rights groups urge Egypt's parliament to reject controversial draft of Criminal Procedures Code

A number of human rights organisations urged Egypt's lower-house of parliament to reject a proposed draft of the Criminal Procedures Code, which has, in recent weeks, ignited a widespread debate in the Arab World's most populous country.

In a statement released on Wednesday, Amnesty International, Dignity, Human Rights Watch and the International Commission of Jurists jointly argued that, if approved, the new controversial law would further entrench injustice in the country's already flawed legal system.

The draft law in question grants more authority and impunity to law enforcement officials and other government officers, and arguably allows further violations to be committed in the name of the law.

"[The draw law] fails to ensure a detainee's right to be brought before a judge promptly, at most within 48 hours from the time of arrest, to rule on their detention," said Mahmoud Shalaby, Egypt Researcher at Amnesty International.

"The amendments would also authorise prosecutors to make crucial decisions on hearing defence witnesses and enable prosecutors to conduct interrogations without defence lawyers present if deemed necessary to reveal the truth," he added.

Over the past weeks, pro-government media outlets hailed the law proposed in response to the recommendations of the National Dialogue held in 2022 that involved discussions with various political groups and civil society.

"The draft amendments make a mockery of the so-called National Dialogue between the government and opposition and of the concerns of victims, civil society representatives and United Nations bodies and independent experts," said Said Benarbia, Middle East and North African program director at the International Commission of Jurists.

First enacted in 1950 and amended twice since then, once in 2013 and then in 2020, the government presented the draft law before the parliament in early 2024 for approval and is expected to be passed later this month.

No guarantee of fair trials 

Human rights activists slammed the draft law for falling short of putting an end to arbitrary arrests and the abusive use of pre-trial detention as an oppressive tool to punish regime critics, while "undermining international legal standards and the rights of defendants to have fair trials."

On the other hand, the Lawyers' Syndicate and the Journalists' Syndicate, both, separately, objected to the proposed amendments for containing many "unconstitutional" provisions.

Among the several other raised concerns is detention renewal via videoconferencing in the absence of a detainee's lawyer, which allows for no chance for any defence arguments. 

"Instead of seising the opportunity to introduce much-needed protections and safeguards for detainees’ and defendants’ human rights and end arbitrary detentions, Egyptian legislators are intent on perpetuating the same frameworks that facilitated past and ongoing violations," noted Benarbia.

'Shameless audacity'

Even though the amendments to the law noted shorter pre-trial periods by up to 18 months instead of two years, the rights groups still deemed it problematic.

"The revised limits would remain unduly long and the draft [law] fails to curb prosecutors' existing powers to extend abusive pre-trial detention without judicial oversight, including by ordering those detained into pre-trial detention on similar charges in new cases," the joint statement read.

Over the past decade of President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi's reign, local and international human rights organisations documented cases in which the authorities used pre-trial detention as an oppressive tool against critics, activists and journalists.

Local and international rights groups have repeatedly accused the Egyptian authorities of "recycling" activists and regime critics into new cases before the maximum duration of pre-trial detention ends.

By doing so, detainees remain incarcerated for years without a fair trial, mostly charged with terrorism-related accusations, without concrete evidence or solid police investigations for their lawyers to argue. 

Last week, an Egyptian political prisoner attempted suicide by jumping off the eighth floor in northern Sharqiya province to protest against his prolonged detention for almost seven years "without standing a fair trial."

A few days earlier, the Egyptian prosecutor-general rejected the petition of prominent British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah to count the past two years he had spent in pre-trial detention as part of his five-year sentence, which had technically ended on 29 September.

"The shameless audacity of Egyptian authorities in celebrating this draft [law] shows how far this oppressive government has distanced itself from the most basic international human rights standards and reflects the security agencies' ability to write their abusive practices into law with little resistance from State institutions," said Grant Shubin, Legal Adviser at Dignity.