Egypt proceeds to cancel State Security Courts; all issues referred to civil courts
Egypt, Politics, 6/10/2003

In an extended session that lasted for over four hours, the Shura Council agreed, in principle, to cancel Law 105/1980, as well as to amend certain items and articles in the Penal Code and the Criminal Procedure Law.

Such tentative approval is considered a significant step in updating Egypt's Criminal Law, thereby plugging various loopholes and clearing up a number of ambiguities. According to the proposed new law, the State Security Courts would be cancelled and all their specialised jurisdiction would be transferred to other courts mentioned in the original Law on Criminal Courts.

All the lawsuits, counterclaims cases, legal challenges or impugnments due to be tried or considered by the State Security Courts would from now on be referred to other specialised courts.

The proposed law would also nullify the custodial sentence of life with hard labour, which judges still hand down, as provided for in the Penal Code and other legal texts. Life with hard labour would be replaced with life imprisonment without hard labour.

As for custodial sentences with 'temporary' hard labour, these would be replaced with 'hard' imprisonment, again without hard labour, in certain specified prisons.

Serious offenders could still be sentenced to a lifetime's 'hard' imprisonment. According to the draft law, convicts would never step outside the prison gates to go and break rocks in the desert quarries at Tora and other places, as they have to do at present.

Nevertheless, 'hard' imprisonment in these prisons would mean that convicts would be punished by having to do work of a lighter nature, as stipulated by the government.

Hard imprisonment would be for between three and 15 years, although it could be longer in certain exceptional cases outlined in the new draft.

Abdel-Rehim Nafei, head of the Shura Council's Legislative Committee, justifies the amendments, saying that they comply with the Constitution and that they reflect the fact that all citizens are equal in Criminal Law. He also explains that there are psychological reasons for radical changes in Egypt's punitive policy.

"When it comes to punishing the criminal, the new trend is not to make him suffer by torturing him within the prison or outside [i.e. with hard labour]. Rather, the purpose of punishment should be to rehabilitate the criminal by teaching him a job or a profession. If we can teach him a new skill, this will help him find work once he's purged his custodial sentence," Nafei says.

The draft law, if endorsed by the People's Assembly (Parliament), would represent a whole new chapter in Egyptian Law, resulting from the government's insistence on upgrading and developing its legislative and legal policy.

"The establishment of the Human Rights Council and greater support for NGOs and civil society reflect Egypt's policy of eradicating any blemish or blot that might detract from the justice of her laws," Minister of Justice Farouk Seif el-Nasr explained.

Previous Stories:
  Shura Council approves in principle draft law on human rights council   (6/9/2003)
  Akhbar Al-Youm: Egyptian-Sudanese unity becomes necessity   (6/9/2003)
  Mubarak phones Arafat   (6/7/2003)

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