It is not enough to ban former regime cadres from political life; transitional justice is more complex, entailing reconciliation and re-assimilation, writes Eman Ragab* The Egyptian revolution set into motion a conflict between revolutionary forces and the "remnants" of the old regime over how the latter be could brought to account for the corruption they wrought in Egypt. To the revolutionaries, criminal proceedings against the higher echelons of that old regime are not enough. All guilty of sewing the seeds of political corruption, rampant under the former regime, should be made to pay. At the centre of this conflict is a drive to impose a ban that would prohibit former National Democratic Party (NDP) members from taking part in political life. Whether called the Treachery Law or the Political Isolation Law, as officially adopted by the Egyptian cabinet, it is a healthy sign that post-revolutionary Egypt is moving forward and beginning to shed the problems that weighed it down since former president Mubarak was ousted. Nevertheless, the way forward is not clear sailing. The controversy over the Treachery Law is essentially a conflict over how to achieve transitional justice in revolutionary Egypt. This is one of Egypt's most formidable challenges at this stage, and perhaps one more demanding than the task of drawing up a new constitution. The foremost difficulty is the sensitivity of the matter. There is considerable popular pressure to apply the Treachery Law to the former president whom the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), currently in charge of running the country, is keen to shield from the offence. With obstacles such as this, transitional justice could ultimately prove partial and selective. A second major problem is the scope. How many people would be affected by the process? So far, political forces seek retribution from NDP members. According to some estimates, these number in the neighbourhood of three million, and because of the identity overlap between the ruling party and the state, they are spread throughout the government apparatus and they have formed networks of socio-political alliances with leading families in Upper Egypt, as well as some powerful economic alliances. If the Treachery Law goes into effect, therefore, its practical reach will extend beyond former NDP members to include their broad array of allies. It is impossible to predict how all these many and different people would react to being barred from political involvement for a period of five years, as the most recent version of the law provides, or for 10 years, as the Muslim Brotherhood is calling for. Quite possibly, application of the Treachery Law could be stretched even further. Its first article, which remains unchanged by its recent revisions, furnishes no guarantee of immunity for youth of the revolution. They, too, could theoretically face charges of treason, which, of course, would fly in the face of the original purpose of the law, which is to penalise the NDP leadership for corruption and prevent their return to power in any form and under any guise. Obviously, therefore, there must be clearly defined limitations to the application of the law. The third difficulty lies in the mechanisms of implementation. If not carefully regulated, the application of transitional justice could not only backfire against the original demands of the revolution but also generate new conflicts rather than creating the type of national consensus needed as a foundation for the construction of a new order. The purges that took place in former Czechoslovakia and in Iraq offer vivid testimony to the fact that not all transitional justice policies necessarily achieve the desired justice. Indeed, as those cases exemplify, they can reinforce vindictiveness, work to undermine the legitimacy of successive governments and obstruct the restoration of stability, especially in cases where there are no time or scope restrictions to the purging or exclusion processes. For example, the anti- Baathist law and Justice and Accountability Law turned the remnants of the previous regime in Iraq into adversaries of successive governments in Iraq and a party to the weave of factions opposed to the political forces that had been prejudiced by the Saddam Hussein regime. The purges also worked to generate a climate of mistrust that drove portions of the banned Baath Party to create radical organisations and militias in Iraq and abroad, which severely hampered the realisation of national reconciliation. Meanwhile, the experiences of other countries have underscored how important it is for a political accounting process to be accompanied by a reconciliation process that would permit for the re-assimilation of those who had been banned after the stipulated period. In Egypt, this would cover former NDP members who were not among the leadership and who were not guilty of political corruption. In addition to mending a socio-political rift, such a measure would also enable society to benefit from the expertise that had been at the disposal of the NDP when it was the sole interface between the state and the public and the sole channel for conveying demands. The importance of transitional justice cannot be overstated in view of its long-range impact on Egypt. The prosecution of NDP members guilty of perpetrating the political corruption that pervaded the old order is necessary as a form of deterrent against attempts to reproduce the ills of that regime under a new guise. On the other hand, the failure to institute clear restrictions and limitations could hamper the closure of the transitional phase and feed the spirit of vindictiveness, especially on the part of such forces as the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been adamantly campaigning for a law on treachery, or on the part of former NDP members in the provinces and their allies. Such a spirit is a recipe for violence that could lead to political assassinations and spiral out of control. Again, Iraq offers a clear lesson in this regard. What Egypt needs most today is not a new treachery or political isolation law but rather a set of measures aimed at realising transitional justice without creating new sources of tension. The first step is to formulate a new law, that we might call the Law of Justice, its purpose being precisely to establish clear principles and regulations for bringing former NDP leaders to account for their crimes of political corruption that were detrimental to Egypt and its political evolution. The law must set specific criteria for establishing commitment of or complicity in such crimes and it must set penalties in proportion to the nature of the crime, for example, prohibiting a guilty party from participating in the forthcoming elections as a candidate or a campaigner for a candidate. The second step is to create an autonomous commission of judges charged with implementing the law. The law itself would contain provisions regarding its composition, duties and the transparency of its proceedings. The third step is to commence public criminal proceedings against all those charged with committing human rights abuses before and after the revolution. The fourth and related step is to create "Truth Commissions" whose purpose is to investigate human rights violations, identify their victims and develop the measures necessary to prevent their recurrence. This must be followed by the establishment of a framework for compensating victims and other forms of redress. Sixth, there must be a formal commemoration for the martyrs of the revolution and all who sacrificed their lives for the sake of freedom. This could take the form of an annual event or the creation of a commemorative monument. Finally, the Ministry of Interior and other institutions that had served to commit and perpetuate corruption and human rights abuses must be entirely reformed. In addition to the foregoing, Egypt must set into motion a national reconciliation process whose purpose is to restore trust between former NDP members who had not been involved in acts of political corruption and other political forces. The process would eventually extend to former NDP officials who had been found guilty of crimes of political corruption and whose re-assimilation into political life would commence after the period of their ban expired. * The writer is a researcher at the Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
