The Egyptian state gives, the Egyptian state takes - Why dictators pretend they love the law

There is something absurd but rational about the way authoritarian politicians like Egypt's al-Sisi use legal justifications for repression.

• Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has passed changes to the anti-terror law - and has thus given himself extensive powers.

• Authoritarians have used some form of legalism as the regime's outer line of defense.

• By basing their right to abuse their own citizens (and foreigners) on the law, they seek to turn constitutionalism against their critics.

• This article is available for the first time in German - it was first published by

  Foreign Policy

  magazine on November 10, 2021

  .

Recently, the Egyptian House of Representatives passed amendments to the country's counterterrorism law that strengthen the powers of the country's president and armed forces.

With these changes, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi can take “measures to maintain security and public order”.

There is no question that the Egyptian authorities will make the definition of the maintenance of security and public order as broad as possible.

The result is a counterterrorism law that is likely to go further than the emergency measures the Egyptian leadership lifted a week earlier and routinely used against both violent and peaceful opponents of al-Sisi.

The Egyptian state gives and the Egyptian state takes.

None of this was shocking, although my blood froze when I read that researching and writing about the military without written permission from the government would result in a substantial fine.

If I had written my dissertation now, rather than in the late 1990s and early 2000s, I would never have tackled the project that resulted in my first book.

The Egyptian state gives, the Egyptian state takes - Why dictators pretend they love the law

But of course that is the point: students, academics and journalists should be taught to fear.

This is not just a trivial malice, but a legal cloak to abuse people like the poor Italian PhD student Giulio Regeni, who did not research the armed forces in Egypt but was hunted, tortured and killed because he was was doing research on a subject the government did not like.

With all the power in the hands of al-Sisi and his advisors, it may seem strange that they should go to the trouble of making changes to laws and getting them through the Egyptian House of Representatives. Why do authoritarian politicians who oppose virtually every aspect of democratic politics so often find it necessary to fake democratic practices? What's in it for you? Quite a lot, actually.

For the completely uninitiated: The Egyptian constitution provides for an open, democratic and fair system of government. For example, Article 4 says: “Sovereignty belongs only to the people who exercise and protect it. You are the source of power. They preserve their national unity, which is based on the principle of equality, justice and equal opportunities for citizens, as provided for in this constitution. ”The following article explains that the political system of Egypt is based on the peaceful transfer of power , respect for human rights, the separation of powers and “party diversity”. Sounds pretty good, doesn't it? The drafters of the constitution knew exactly what a liberal and democratic constitution looks like.

Egypt: Constitution with trap doors that facilitate repression - But why the pretext at all?

But they were also smart enough to include phrases such as “in the manner provided by the law”, “in the manner established by the law” and “in accordance with the law”. It may seem like semantic theory, but this type of formulation allows the Egyptian authorities to have both: institutions similar to those in liberal and democratic states, but with trap doors that facilitate repression. Although the Egyptians are formally allowed the freedom to research (Article 66) and the freedom of publication (Article 71), in practice these rights are limited by being subject to the laws on sedition and "defamation of the honor of persons" who be construed as not really protecting the right to research and publication.

(Although politics is becoming more and more diverse, peacemaking is still almost exclusively a men's business. Why?)

While this explains how it works, it does not explain why the Egyptian government is using pseudo-democratic practices to introduce anti-democratic provisions into law.

Since al-Sisi and his counterparts in other non-democratic countries have full powers, this hardly seems necessary, but they benefit from it in two ways.

First, the codification of the amendments to the Anti-Terrorism Act provides an enforcement mechanism that contributes to the political control that is the ultimate goal of the Egyptian state.

Second, and more importantly, it enables defenders of the regime to deflect or undermine criticism from home and abroad.

If the US * State Department expresses “concern” or even “extreme concern” about the repressive nature of the Egyptian political system, a spokesman for the Egyptian State Department can simply point out the fact that Egypt is a separation-of-power parliamentary system with a constitution, in human rights, freedoms and the rule of law are enshrined without actually lying. Stephen Colbert called this "truthy" or "truthiness", which means that a statement is sufficiently true, but does not capture the whole story. One can imagine an Egyptian official responding to questions about the anti-terrorism changes: “They were passed in parliament, which represents the Egyptian people, who are sovereign. This is how the system works. This is our law.We are a sovereign country. ”Anyone who has had a conversation with an Egyptian official on these kinds of issues knows exactly what I'm talking about.

Authoritarians use some kind of legalism as the regime's outer line of defense

This is not just an Egyptian phenomenon. Turkish, Hungarian, Russian, Polish and other officials use the same type of arguments. If you ask a Turkish diplomat why so many journalists are imprisoned in Turkey * even though Article 28 of the constitution guarantees freedom of the press, he will probably say that these guarantees do not apply. Because, according to the diplomat, the press representatives and editors in question tried to undermine the irrevocable Articles 1, 2 and 3 of the constitution, which identify Turkey as a democratic and secular republic with the rule of law. Of course, many of the journalists detained in Turkey have done nothing of the sort. However, since the Constitution contains provisions that precisely restrict the freedoms mentioned in the documents,The persecution of journalists for political reasons is completely legal, as Turkish officials often claim.

Does anyone believe what the representatives of authoritarian regimes have to say? That is hard to say. To stay with the example of Turkey, the supporters of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) look at you like crazy to say that Turkey is not a democracy and that in democracies journalists should not be in jail. Similarly, Egyptian officials reject Western assessments of the deplorable human rights situation in their country, stressing that the people in the prisons are there for a reason and that Egypt's independent judges brought them there. Of course, this is only plausible for supporters of the regime. However, the point is not to convince proponents of something they are already convinced of.The anchoring of restrictive measures and authoritarian instruments in a legal system and a constitutional order rather helps to rebut criticism from foreign governments, international human rights groups and the few constant opponents at home.

Activists have repeatedly urged US and European leaders to measure authoritarian politicians like al-Sisi against their own words and judge them against their constitutional obligations to respect individual rights.

That is a sensible strategy, but the authoritarians have used some form of legalism as the regime's outer line of defense.

By basing their right to abuse their own citizens (and foreigners) on the law, they seek to turn constitutionalism against their critics.

So far it has worked.

by Steven A. Cook

Steven A. Cook

 is a columnist for 

 and a Senior Fellow of the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei on Middle East and African Studies with the Council on Foreign Relations.

His latest book is called: 

 Twitter: @stevenacook

This article was first published in English on November 10, 2021 in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com” - as part of a cooperation, a translation is now also available to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals.

* Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

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