Last year, I followed a strange paradox: the government submitted the Code of Criminal Procedure, Parliament approved it, and the dissenting voices of individual MPs were drowned out by a majority that supported the government at every turn, as though Parliament were an extension of the executive authority rather than a body responsible for oversight and accountability.
The paradox was that the President of the Republic returned the law to Parliament, endorsing many of the points raised by some opposition MPs.
Then today, to my astonishment, after an entire year, I followed with interest, regret, and sadness what took place under the dome of Parliament.
I read what a friend of mine wrote, and listened to the views of two members of Parliament, and that prompted me to write:
Just hours before the scheduled entry into force of the new Code of Criminal Procedure, the House of Representatives gave final approval, in an extraordinary session on September 30, one day before the opening of the new legislative year, to postpone the implementation of Law No. 174 of 2025 for an entire year — from October 1, 2026, to October 1, 2027.
Parliament did not touch the substance of the law with a single word. It merely changed the date of its implementation in Article Six.
What surprised me was not the postponement itself, but its timing. The law was enacted last November, and postponing its implementation for nearly a year had originally been justified by the need for training and preparation. Yet we reached the night before its implementation only to discover that a full year had not been enough, and that the state needed another year.
This raises a question more serious than technical preparedness: who bears responsibility for discovering this lack of readiness at the last minute, when state institutions had known the implementation date for an entire year?
I am troubled by the idea that administrative unpreparedness should become a justification for postponing rights that have nothing to do with technology in the first place.
If the electronic notification platform is not ready, then postpone the provisions related to it. If video-conferencing facilities have not been prepared, postpone whatever depends on them. But to postpone the entire law for a year is a legislative choice, and there were more precise and fairer alternatives.
Yet, for me, the challenge goes deeper than the implementation date. The law, in its current form, needs genuine review — not merely a change of date.
This is not a traffic law or a customs law. It is the law that governs the most critical moments in the relationship between the state and the citizen: arrest, search, investigation, detention, release, defense, and trial.
In practical terms, it is the daily constitution of personal freedom.
The Egyptian Constitution is clear that personal liberty is a natural right that is protected, that the rule of law is the basis of governance, and that the right to defense and a fair trial are guarantees that cannot be reduced to administrative arrangements. Therefore, the value of this law should not be measured by how convenient it is for the authorities, but by the safeguards it establishes between the state and the individual.
The first point of concern is that the Public Prosecution still combines the functions of investigation, accusation, and disposition of criminal proceedings. Reforming this does not mean weakening the Public Prosecution. Rather, it means returning it to the philosophy behind its existence as the “people’s lawyer” and the “fair adversary” that seeks the truth, not merely a conviction.
This requires expanding the role of the investigating judge in serious cases, so that there is a clear distance between the person who builds the accusation and the person who tests its evidence.
Then come other areas where authority expands while oversight narrows.
First is the monitoring of communications and recording of conversations in private places, with broad powers in certain state-security felonies. The closer the state comes to an individual’s privacy, the greater the need for independent judicial oversight.
Second is the interrogation of a suspect by a law-enforcement officer as an exception, “if there is a fear that time will be lost.” Experience tells us that the most dangerous exceptions are those that become back doors.
Third is the expansion of the circle of individuals granted judicial enforcement authority without a corresponding expansion of accountability.
As for the right of defense, the law makes the presence of a lawyer during interrogation the general rule, and that is a safeguard in its favor. But it retains exceptions that restrict the defense’s access to the investigation. A lawyer who cannot see the entire case file is feeling his way through the darkness. Protecting the identity of an anonymous witness is necessary, provided that it does not destroy the defendant’s right to confront the evidence that may deprive him of his freedom.
As for procedural invalidity, allowing certain violations to be cured simply because the defense failed to raise them at a particular time confuses a formal defect that can be remedied with a violation of a constitutional safeguard that should not be cleansed by procedural silence. Likewise, preventing a person from traveling for a year, renewable, is a restriction on freedom of movement and must not become a punishment imposed before a verdict.
But the deepest and most painful wound, in my view, is pretrial detention.
It is true that the law reduces some of its limits and expands its alternatives, but it does not fundamentally change the philosophy. Article 114 states that a member of the Public Prosecution “may” replace detention with one of seven alternative measures.
The word “may” is crucial here, because there is a difference between a system that merely makes alternatives available and a system that obliges the investigating authority to examine those alternatives and demonstrate that they are insufficient before depriving a person of his liberty.
The first merely adds options. The second restores freedom to its rightful position as the default and makes detention the exception.
More dangerously — and frighteningly — the law does not categorically close the door to what is known as “case recycling”: a detainee approaches the end of his detention period, only to find himself facing a new case with similar accusations, and a new clock begins running.
I have seen this happen dozens of times. When an exception turns into years, it loses its meaning, regardless of what it continues to be called in the law.
House arrest, reporting to a police station, prohibiting contact with specific individuals, and the repeated review of detention periods do not require technology or servers. They require decisions and political will, and a belief that freedom should not have to wait for the final cable to be connected.
Therefore, I say: if the state has given itself an additional year, let it be a year to reform the law itself, not merely to complete the screens and systems.
Let us reopen the discussion about the powers of the Public Prosecution and the investigating judge, the right of defense, privacy, judicial enforcement authority, travel bans, anonymous witnesses, and remote hearings.
There must be an unequivocal provision prohibiting case recycling, and making the examination of alternatives to detention an obligation before detention is imposed, rather than an option that may or may not be used.
The coming year will either be a year in which we reform the philosophy of justice, or another year of waiting — with those waiting behind closed doors alongside us.
