t’Customary committees’, a form of popular court, are a name frequently circulated in the Minya Governorate whenever a sectarian conflict or a vendetta incident takes place. These committees have been hailed as short-term solutions for administering jusice by some, while others say they resemble a return to nomadic life and prevent the rule of law.
t’Customary committees’, a form of popular court, are a name frequently circulated in the Minya Governorate whenever a sectarian conflict or a vendetta incident takes place. These committees have been hailed as short-term solutions for administering jusice by some, while others say they resemble a return to nomadic life and prevent the rule of law.
The Head of the Minya Human Rights Society and of the Arab Refugee Commission, human rights activist Magdi Reslan, says the customary committees are “a tribal law that is inapplicable in urban areas.” He believes they replace the rule of law with “obsolete tribal customs”.
In light of the involvement of customary committees in repeated sectarian incidents, the attendance of the director of security and the governor to such committees, there is a tendency, says Reslan, for “any powerful group to commit a major crime then form its own committee to settle the problem scot-free.”
Pop-up courts
Reslan quotes incidents experienced by the village of Beni Ahmad Sharqiyah throughout the first week of August when a sectarian conflict broke out between Muslims and Copts following an altercation between a Muslim and a Copt over a mobile phone song supporting ousted President Mohamed Morsi. As a result, one young Muslim was killed; 18 people from both sides were injured; houses, cars and shops of Copts were burnt and destroyed; and two churches were attacked.
“Eventually, the Al Gama’a al-Islamiyya group in Minya, whose members led the attack on the village and mobilized many from neighboring villages, held a customary reconciliation meeting in which the Copts had to acquiesce and accept the accord terms,” Reslan commented.
The Copts, says Reslan, waived the complaints they had filed against the Muslims and also their right to claim compensation for the damages they sustained – which they estimated at around L.E. 15 M (more than $2.14 million). They instead approved a penalty clause of L.E. 2 M (approx $357,000) to be paid by those who would violate any of the clauses. This was made under the presence of the director of security and the governorate general secretary, who were among the signatories to the accord, according to Reslan.
Customary committees usually comprise local and tribal dignitaries as well as representatives of influential political parties and of the state. They mainly exist in tribal areas, but observers suggest they have recently spread to urban areas too.
The Head of the Freedom and Immunity Center in Minya and the secretary general of the Revolution Guardians Party, Muhammad Hambouli, says customary committees are a recognized traditional legal system in Bedouin and desert areas. “We consider these committees as a removal of the law in urban areas,” says Hambouli.
Get-out-of-jail-free card
He suggests that the rulings of these committees in Bedouin areas like Sinai and Mersa Matruh, are binding and recognized where they are called ‘customary courts.’ As for urban areas, he stresses, “they are as if non-existent. They push people to commit crimes since they can escape punishment through a customary session in which the right of society and of the weak is wasted. Thus, crimes become unpunishable.”
Hambouli believes that customary committees in urban areas have become a “media show,” because shortly afterwards the same clashes are renewed for the same old reasons.
The only case where law was enforced and conflicts have not been renewed, says Hambouli, is the sectarian incidents that took place in April 2011 in the village of Abu Qirqas, southern Minya Governorate, in which two Muslims were killed and four others were injured in a fight. The verdict of the criminal trial sentenced eight people to life imprisonment and placed five others under surveillance for five years.
The Head of the Center of Justice and Development for Human Rights in Minya, Nadi Atef, says the customary meetings were “a temporary painkiller” and simply furthered crime, which is evidenced in the burning and vandalism of the property of Copts. Copts in Beni Suef accepted settlement without claiming any compensation for their burnt property, cars and houses. Another attack took place at the Monastery of Saint Fana in Mallawi without any compensation.
Where is law enforcement?
“If there is no law, the judiciary and the courts should be abolished. Law enforcement means there is a culprit and a victim, and the culprit should be punished, while abolishing the law means more crimes and a conflict of another form,” Atef added.
The Head of Life Center for Human Rights in Minya, lawyer Ahmad Shbeeb, points out that these customary committees undermine society’s right to punish culprits through the constitutional legal system. Shbeeb says there is no legislation for establishing such ‘tribal courts’, underlying that they are not documented in the real estate register, and that the litigants may deny their report. The only control for the litigants’ commitment to the accord is their signing of bond certificates with huge sums. “Many filed lawsuits challenge these certificates, causing a major crisis,” says Shbeeb.
Shbeeb criticizes the usage of such committees in sectarian incidents, especially in respect of the expulsion of Christian families from their lands. This policy, says Shbeeb, has helped displace Christians from several places, such as the village of Ezbet Shaker in the Beni Mazar area, northern Minya Governorate. “How could a customary committee whose members describe themselves as wise ask a citizen to abandon his town, land and house? Would this citizen accept such a displacement?” Shbeeb told Correspondents.
Committees say they are democratic
Commenting on the torrent of criticisms leveled against the customary committees, Alaa Sbe’ee, a member of the customary committee in Beni Ahmad Sharqiyah, underlined that these committees would examine the problem, its implications and the possibility of coexistence of its parties. The verdict, explains Sbe’ee, is not reached through just one session.
“First a committee comprising representatives of the litigants problem is formed, then a number of solutions and proposals are voted on by majority of the members, and finally the verdict becomes binding with a penalty clause so that no party would violate any of the accord terms,” says Sbe’ee.
Sbe’ee believes that declaring and signing the accord is an ethical and moral verdict for the litigants. “The culprit feels shame and apologizes in public, which belittles his social and moral status among his people and family, while the victim is publically rehabilitated and reassured that he will not be assaulted again.”
Victims says they have received no compensation
These committees, says Sbe’ee, “are a great achievement” because “the procedures of litigation and criminal courts are so slow and may last for years.”
The parties affected by the sectarian incidents do not however concur with Sbe’ee’s view. Abdulmasseeh Maleekeh, an affected local from Beni Ahmad Sharqiya, says 35 Copts have been affected by the Beni Ahmad incidents and that they were not invited to attend the customary settlement session in the first place, let alone the session that granted no compensation whatsoever for the affected people.
Maleekeh explains that he and his Muslim partner had a bus and a truck burned, yet received no compensation. He says he has agreed with the other affected people to bring a lawsuit against the state apparatus in order to get financial compensation for their losses. “They are our living and we will not survive without them,” says Maleekh.
Bishop Makarios of Minya demanded the state compensate the affected. “We are not going to compensate them. The money of the church is for the weak and the orphans,” said Bishop Makarios.
