Legal experts blast speed, volume of presidential edicts restricting Egyptians' rights
Presidential edicts restricting rights without parliamentary approval have become rife since overthrow of Mursi, four specialists agree
Egypt is enacting authoritarian laws at a rate unmatched by any regime for 60 years, legal specialists from four institutions have revealed.
Since the overthrow of Mohammed Mursi in July last year, his successors in the presidency, Adly Mansour and Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, have used the absence of an elected parliament to issue almost unilaterally a series of draconian decrees that severely restrict freedom of expression, association and assembly.
The speed at which the decrees have been issued outpaces legislative frenzies under the dictators Anwar Sadat and Hosni Mubarak, and is matched only by the period that followed the toppling of the Egyptian monarchy in 1952, according to Amr Shalakany, associate law professor at the American University in Cairo; Amr Abdulrahman, director of civil liberties at the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights; Mohamed Elhelw, head of legal research at the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms; and Ahmed Ezzat, a human-rights lawyer, and previously a legal researcher at another prominent rights group.
"This is not normal," said Shalakany. "Historically, it's completely out of pattern with any normal legislation that we've had experience of in this country."
The only precedent, Shalakany said, was set by the Revolutionary Command Council of the early 1950s.
"The rate is faster than even the last year of Sadat's [tenure, 1981]; the scope is also wider."
Legislation enacted by Mansour, an interim president installed by Sisi after Mursi's removal, and Sisi himself, a former army chief elected to succeed Mansour, include laws that ban protest, expand the jurisdiction of military courts, remove several limits on pretrial detention, and restrict media coverage of the armed forces without prior approval.
Most troublingly, the moves have been made without the involvement of parliament, and with only the nominal oversight of a cabinet and a committee over which Sisi has overbearing influence.
"Sadat and Mubarak did not use their capacity to issue controversial legislation in the absence of parliament to nearly the same extent as Sisi is doing now," Abdulrahman said. "These are crucial decrees that relate to different spheres of economic and social life that passed without any kind of national dialogue."
According to a road map drawn up after the overthrow of Mursi, who was himself accused of draconian measures, a parliament should have been elected by the end of 2013. Revisions to the road map then pushed back elections until July 2014. But despite the speed at which other laws have been passed, a second law needed to set elections in motion still has not been finalised, meaning Egypt may not have an elected legislature until next summer. Sisi and Mansour have filled the vacuum with controversial decisions well beyond their constitutional remit.
"The constitution gives the president the right to issue decrees in exceptional situations, out of necessity," Elhelw said. "But the laws they have issued are not absolutely necessary. If they weren't issued, the state would not stop."
Authoritarian laws: Egypt's new tools of oppression
An Adly Mansour decree let government ministers award contracts to companies without a public tender process.
Pre-trial detention limit for those accused of crimes punishable by life sentences removed, technically allowing some unconvicted political dissidents to remain on remand in perpetuity.
The protest ban has become one of the state's main new tools of oppression, used to arrest thousands of people.
This bans third parties from appealing against the awarding of government contracts.
Experts warn a new voting system will privilege the old elites, and inhibit liberal parties that emerged after the revolution.
Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi gave himself the power to hire and fire university heads, allowing him Hosni Mubarak-style control of campuses, the fulcrum of dissent since Mohammed Mursi's overthrow.
Requesting or receiving foreign funds for the purposes of "harming the national interest" is punishable by life in prison. The government says this is aimed at terrorists. Rights groups, whose funding is mostly sourced overseas, say the vagueness of the wording can be used against them, and have scaled back requests for help from abroad.
The army was given jurisdiction over large parts of public space, including roads, bridges and universities.
Rights groups were given a deadline to sign up to restrictive Mubarak-era legislation, or face being shut down.
If rubber-stamped by Sisi, this law would expand the definition of terrorism to anything that "harms national unity" - loose phrasing that could be applied to the opposition.