About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

62 ICJ Newsl. 1 (1995)

handle is hein.icj/icjnews0062 and id is 1 raw text is: CIJL Reports on Tension between Legal Profession and Government in Egypt The Centre for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers (CIJL) of the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ) published the report of its August 1994 mission to Egypt entitled Clash in Egypt: The Government and the Bar. The report studies the uneasy relationship between the Government of Egypt and the country's lawyers. On 26 April 1994, Egyptian lawyer Abdel Harith Madani was arrested at his office and died in questionable circumstances while in police custody. Soon after, a serious confrontation between hundreds of protesting lawyers and the police resulted in injury and detention. The Egyptian Bar Association, whose Council appeared to have led the protest, was threatened with repressive measures. Mr. Madani had defended members of Islamist groups. Government officials, while denying police responsibility for Mr. Madani's death, described him as a terrorist who acted as a conduit between his imprisoned militant clients and armed field operatives; a claim his family and colleagues have denied. To date, no results of the investigation by the Attorney-General's office into the death have been revealed. These developments prompted the CIJL to conduct a mission to Egypt to examine the various threats affecting the independence of the legal profession, the causes and effects of the friction between the Government and the Bar, and the circumstances of Mr. Madani's death. The Background In its report the CIJL begins by noting that the judiciary and the legal profession have traditionally been esteemed by society. For many years, the regular judiciary in Egypt has successfully played its rightful role as a protector of fundamental freedoms. Egyptian lawyers have also been active in defending rights and liberties. Since 1991, however, these two pillars of the Rule of Law in Egypt have been affected by the government's fight against Islamists. Since 1991, hundreds of civilians, police personnel, and foreigners have been killed as Islamists pursued an armed campaign to undermine the State. The government, in turn, has resorted to arrests and searches without warrants, detention without trial, collective punishment and the trial of civilians in military and special courts. It is alleged that torture is widespread in prisons and holding centres. The report demonstrates that the conflict in Egypt has had a serious effect on the Rule of Law and fundamental rights and liberties. But also that the drive by Islamic fundamentalists to achieve their goal by violent means has endangered the right to free expression, safety, and most of all the right to life. The report notes that the government has showed no desire to deal with the problem through dialogue, and that the end result is an Egyptian society struggling to lead a normal life, stuck between militant groups that use violence to dictate a way of life, and a government that counters violence with violence. Lawyers have been vastly affected in the exercise of their professional functions. Though it was the death in custody of Mr. Madani that sparked the lawyers' protest, the mission found that anger and frustration had been building up for years. Lawyers from various ideological and political backgrounds conveyed similar grievances about the deep crisis between their profession and a government tied up by the struggle against terrorism. Lawyers' Concerns The CIJL shares the lawyers' concerns that the legal profession in Egypt is Continued on Page 2 IC Nesete N'6/19

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most