Researcher Amir Abdurrahan is a member of the Egyptian left wing party, the Socialist People’s Alliance Party, which was formed shortly after Egypt’s 2011 revolution. He’s currently working on his doctorate in the UK which looks at the Egyptian legal system in the decade before the revolution.

Abdurrahan spoke to Correspondents about the changes Egypt’s judiciary is going through now and why during a revolution, the rule of law may become irrelevant.

Researcher Amir Abdurrahan is a member of the Egyptian left wing party, the Socialist People’s Alliance Party, which was formed shortly after Egypt’s 2011 revolution. He’s currently working on his doctorate in the UK which looks at the Egyptian legal system in the decade before the revolution.

Abdurrahan spoke to Correspondents about the changes Egypt’s judiciary is going through now and why during a revolution, the rule of law may become irrelevant.

So how do you see Egypt’s legal system during the revolution? In fact, can the rule of law even exist during a revolution?

Historically Egypt’s modern legal system – with the establishment of civil courts and a judiciary – was based on the 1923 Constitution. However the legal system was often overshadowed by things like war, political conflict, the need for development and economics.

But the status of a legal system during, and under, a revolution is a strange thing because basically when revolutions break out, they’re challenging that status quo. These are moments when the law is basically suspended, when people are fed up with law.

All revolutions are similar. The Egyptian revolution happened partially because people were rejecting things like torture and other human rights violations that were being carried out in the name of the law. The problem now is how to carry on. Have we removed the reasons for the mistrust in the law and can we then just carry on with the old laws? Do we need special laws for the revolution? And if we do need special laws for the revolution, then how do we stop them becoming weapons for different political actors who may not necessarily agree on one system? For instance, in the case of Sharia law.

So what do you think is the biggest problem in Egypt’s legal system now?

There are several actually. For one thing, the bureaucracy and senior administrators of the former regime are using their positions to take their revenge on the Egyptian people, trying to make it clear that we don’t deserve anything better than Mubarak’s administration. Meanwhile the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists are either corrupt or confused. However the greatest problem is that none of the current political actors in Egypt have the ability to enforce the law. 

So does that mean Egypt is trapped inside a system of Mubarak’s making?

In its final stages, the former regime realized it was growing more powerless and it started to act in a kind of grey area, somewhere between lawlessness and the law. Police began cooperating with criminals in certain areas of Egypt that were out of their control. As long as those areas were calm and the criminal gangs had them under control, then there was no crisis.

Now the Brotherhood and the police are trying to reproduce that model. In short, the state is rudderless.

So what’s happening now?

The Egyptian state relied upon the Egyptian military for its power for so long and basically the idea of statehood was a tool for the suppression of the Egyptian people. The revolution ended this, the Egyptian people lost their patience. Now the Muslim Brotherhood are the condemned masters of this state – and they are not radicals, they only want to reform the state through Islam. The Brotherhood doesn’t want to build a new state – they want the old one.

On the other hand, others engaged in the revolution wanted to build a new democratic state with values very different to the former [Mubarak] regime. That opposition means that for the time being, we will have to live with a long series of disturbances and disorders.