Egypt - Civil and Criminal

“As you know, I consider your work with the Ministry of Justice in civil law a very important component of the Embassy’s overall effort to improve the functioning of institutions key to Egypt’s progress toward greater democratization and economic reform. . . . I look forward to working with you as the authorities here move toward the establishment of a flexible and accommodating system for the resolution of disputes.”

- U.S. Ambassador (Egypt) Edward S. Walker, Jr.
to ISDLS Executive Director Stephen Mayo, August 1996

Criminal Justice Reform (1996 - Present)

Since 1996, the Egyptian Ministry of Justice and ISDLS have been collaborating to introduce criminal justice modernizations to the Egyptian legal system. The product of this collaboration has been, according to a speech made by the Prosecutor General of Egypt, Counselor Maher Abdel Wahed at the 2003 ISDLS/Egyptian Criminal Justice Conference, a commitment to:

• Expand and activate the use of the existing criminal writ system (a rarely used form of plea bargain)
• Introduce of a variety of diversion mechanisms
• Further investigate the feasibility of introducing an written guilty plea
• Guarantee indigent defender services at the investigation phase of a case to those accused of felonies and at the trial phase of a case to those accused of serious misdemeanors through the expansion of the panel-appointment system or the introduction of a public defender system

By expanding the use of the criminal writ and by introducing diversion and plea-bargaining mechanisms, the Government of Egypt aims to reduce backlog and delay in courts, which will provide citizens with better access to justice. As adequate indigent defense is commonly agreed to be a prerequisite for effectuating alternatives to criminal trial, the existing system of defense will need to be expanded. Indigents accused of felonies must be appointed defense counsel early in the life of a case, in order to enable counsel to conduct independent investigations and to competently advise defendants whether or not to accept a plea bargain. Defendants accused of serious misdemeanors (who comprise a significant portion of the Egyptian criminally accused) must also be provided with defense counsel, in order to benefit from alternatives to trial.

Currently, the Egyptian bar-appointment system provides defense attorneys only to indigents charged with felonies, which carry sentences of seven years or more. Attorneys are appointed by the court immediately preceding the trial phase of a felony case, and are therefore unable to investigate cases (in Egypt, prosecutors and judges are primarily responsible for investigation) or (if legalized) engage in plea bargains. Those indigents accused of serious misdemeanors, which carry a sentence of three to seven years of imprisonment, are not guaranteed the right to an attorney.

The new system being designed will:

• Provide indigents with defense at an earlier stage, enabling defense attorneys to conduct more extensive investigations of cases, and ultimately, to adequately advise clients about alternatives to trial.
• Expand an indigent’s right to an attorney to include serious misdemeanor cases
• Establish criteria for admission to the Panel or Public Defender program, which will require attorneys to have increased levels of trial and criminal law experience in order to be assigned to more serious cases.
• Be overseen by a committee responsible for the compensation, selection and continued evaluation of attorneys.

Since the October 2003 Conference, three delegations of six to ten prosecutors and defense lawyers have worked in the United States to study alternatives to the criminal trial and the public defender system. In the upcoming months, ISDLS will continue to host prosecutors, defense attorneys, judges, legal policy makers, Ministry representatives and human rights activists in order to generate support and understanding about the reforms being promoted and investigated. Furthermore ISDLS will conduct conferences and national seminars in order to expands the base of support within the broader Egyptian legal and civil communities.