NO to the Treachery Act – NO to the Release of Perpetrators: Towards an independent judicial committee to establish transitional justice in Egypt

“No” to the Treachery Act… “No” to the Release of Perpetrators: Towards an independent judicial committee to establish transitional justice in Egypt | 19/07/2011

The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) welcomes the decision by Judge Mohammed al-Gharyani, the president of the Supreme Judicial Council, to appoint a committee to discuss a new law to ensure financial and administrative independence of the judiciary in accordance with international standards. This decision is considered a step forward in preparation for the second National Conference on Justice—which has not been convened since the first conference was held in 1986—with the goal of adopting a comprehensive strategy to advance the judiciary and the Egyptian legal system and to establish the pillars for the rule of law in the post-revolution society.

CIHRS believes that securing judicial independence and immunizing it against interventions from the executive is vital to dispel growing doubts about the possibility of fair and expeditious trials for former regime officials accused of involvement in the killing of demonstrators, grave human rights violations, and corruption. At the same time, however, CIHRS fears that the current course of legal accountability for criminal, economic, and political crimes committed by former regime figures puts the justice system itself at risk and threatens Egyptians’ aspirations for deterrent, fair punishment of perpetrators of these crimes as well as for justice for the victims. The delays and lax measures taken against those responsible for most of these crimes raise serious doubts about the potential for tampering with evidence, manipulating witnesses, and more.
CIHRS believes that both trying former regime figures as well as protecting the credibility of the judiciary require correcting the course of these trials and reshaping the justice system to meet the legitimate aspirations of the Egyptian people.

If the political will exists to hold the Mubarak regime accountable, those responsible for administering the affairs of the country must create an integrated system to receive complaints and criminal claims and establish a fund for compensation or reparation for damages as an attempt to correct the current course of affairs. They must also establish a cohesive system for legal and political investigations into decades of abuses – not just into what occurred in a few days between January 25 and February 2 – and issue credible reports about these investigations, including judicial recommendations to address these abuses and to prevent their recurrence.

CIHRS believes that accountability should not be limited to the killing of demonstrators during the Egyptian revolution but rather that it should extend to the systematic crimes of torture and enforced disappearance seen over at least the last 30 years as well as to the crime of referring civilians to exceptional or military courts, particularly considering that some of these civilians were sentenced to death and executed. The violations of Egyptians’ rights over the past decades ultimately required a popular revolution to confront them, but now an institutional revolution is needed to end such policies and practices and to guarantee that they will not be repeated. The problems and abuses of the past are too complex to be resolved through one traditional mode of action given the multiplicity of perpetrators, crimes, and victims. …more