Still Fighting the Last War? Egypt's Judges after the Revolution
Nathan Brown
October 18, 2012
Egypt’s reformist judges must have felt
vindicated with the fall of the Mubarak regime. After years of boldly calling
for judicial reform—often at their own peril—many of them are now among those
called upon to build a new political order. Among the leaders of the movement
currently holding high office are Mahmoud Mekki, vice president of the
republic, Ahmad Mekki, minister of justice, and Hossam El Gheryani who
completed a term as head of the Supreme Judicial Council, currently chairs the
constituent assembly, and has just won a leadership role on the official human rights
commission.
Their triumph, however, might turn out to be more personal than political. The
judges may now be able to see their demands written into law, but those demands
were formulated for a political system that is being transformed. Reformist
judges may be finding themselves better equipped to fight with yesteryear’s
Mubarak than with this year’s more complicated rivals, and the struggles over
the coming years are likely to feature a different set of issues—or perhaps,
more accurately, unexpected iterations of the older concerns over autonomy and
authority. This October’s confusing legal crisis over the position of
prosecutor-general—a critical post in the Egyptian judicial order—and whether
or not the pre-revolutionary incumbent, Abdel Maguid Mahmoud, should be sacked
and packed off to the Vatican as an ambassador is but a hint of the tensions
that remain and are yet to come between the judiciary and the executive in
Egypt.
What impelled the reformist judges in the early
2000s was a set of issues that had first arisen in the late 1960s when the
Nasserist regime lashed out against judicial critics with a series of measures
designed to place the judiciary as a whole under the watchful eye of the
executive. The regime modified old structures and established some new ones to
ensure that, in critical matters, the regime would have its way—either through
the courts or around them. Over the course of the following decades, the judiciary
managed to roll back some of the most egregious measures. This was done less
through open confrontation—though some critical voices did emerge, particularly
in the Judges Club, a social organization that at times provided a protected
space for judges to articulate their positions—and more through steady lobbying
on specific issues. Among their gains was wining an extension of the mandatory
retirement age and securing increases in salaries and benefits appropriate to
their stature in Egyptian society.
But Sadat and Mubarak were careful to retain
all sorts of subtle and not-so-subtle ways to restrict judicial autonomy and
authority. On the first, there were a variety of ways to co-opt judges through
offering benefits and lucrative secondments; a number of critical positions
(the Attorney General and the president of the Supreme Constitutional Court)
also remained presidential appointments. How much did this influence the
attitudes of the judiciary as a whole or the ability of the regime to obtain
rulings in particular cases? That was always extremely difficult to tell.
Far more obvious were the restrictions on
judicial authority. The emergency law, the use of military courts (allowing the
regime to pluck any case away from the regular judiciary and assign it to more
reliable judges), shuffling of detainees (to avoid court-ordered releases) were
some of the most notorious tools used. While reformist judges lost many
battles, they succeeded in getting these clampdowns on judicial authority into
the political spotlight: calls to end emergency rule and military trials were
at the heart of the 2011 uprising.
The more subtle ways in which judicial autonomy
were limited, though, demanded more subtle responses. Following the revolution,
the Judicial Council and the Judges Club each revived older efforts to write a
comprehensive legal framework for judicial organization so as to secure and
codify judicial independence. The current minister of justice, Ahmed Mekky,
spearheaded one sponsored by the Judicial Council beginning last year. But the
judicial reformists are facing more challenges then they might have expected;
the judiciary is hardly united behind these efforts. The battles of the past
decade led to some personal bitterness, sometimes between the reformists and those
who saw them as grandstanders and as dragging an apolitical institution into
political opposition. Some judges look upon the reformers not as saviors but as
potentially vengeful rivals.
Since Mubarak’s fall other divisions have come
to light. Hitherto hidden ideological divisions (masked in part because
of a strong ethos of nonpartisanship) have broken a bit into the open.
Judicial circles are showing more diversity. It had been widely
suspected that some of the reformists had Islamist inclinations, but now that
orientation is more apparent. There are intra-institutional splits as well:
some judicial bodies regard themselves as properly separate not only from the
executive branch, but also from the rest of the judiciary. These groups are not
anxious to lose their own independence, even if the judiciary as a branch
declares itself more autonomous.
Changing circumstances have outpaced reformist
judges’ demands, and the dissonance is increasingly apparent. The judicial
reformers, for instance, have raised again an old concern (dating back to its
creation) of the existence of a specialized and independent constitutional
court—something the judiciary had historically resisted. Those suspicions have
a historical basis at times, since Egypt's authoritarian rulers had sometimes
created new structures to avoid the regular courts. But some reformers may be
reacting more on the basis of suspicions than strong evidence when they work to
fold such bodies into the main court system today.
Additionally, the battles of the past have been
to fend off the executive—to keep the president away from anything more than a
symbolic role in judicial matters and wrest both autonomy and authority from
the ministry of justice. But now it is clear that the parliament is likely to
be far more of a challenge, though the old struggle with the executive may yet
continue as well. In the short-lived 2012 parliament, deputies showed some
evidence of feeling that their democratic credentials gave them authority to
redesign some judicial structures (most notably the Supreme Constitutional
Court). Of course, few democratic societies accord the judiciary the degree of
independence that Egyptian judges occasionally crave. While Egyptian
judges tend to want to have full control over judicial appointments,
essentially rendering themselves a self-perpetuating body, most democratic
systems allow for a multiplicity of voices.
Finally, the judiciary is finding that some
subtly different conceptions of its appropriate role are beginning to manifest themselves.
In a sense, these might be seen as differences over what the role of Egypt’s
judges is: are they ultimately guarantors of collective interests—the state,
the community, and public welfare—or of individual rights? In the past, there
was not always a clear distinction between the two, especially when the
wielders of political authority seemed to challenge both. But already there
have been signs that these pull in opposite directions, as courts have been
handed cases involving nationalizations, political disqualifications,
transitional justice, political rights, and free expression.
These are questions that the judicial reformers
did not have to resolve when they voiced their opposition to past regime
practices; now that they have taken on the task of helping to reshape Egyptian
politics, they will be called upon to provide answers.
Nathan J. Brown is a professor of political science and
international affairs at George Washington University and a non-resident
scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
This article is
reprinted with permission from Sada. It can be accessed online at:
http://carnegieendowment.org/2012/10/16/still%2Dfighting%2Dlast%2Dwar%2Degypt%2Ds%2Djudges%2Dafter%2Drevolution/e1eo
©
2012, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.