CAIRO: Egypt's Cabinet released Wednesday the amended Treachery Act, stripping officials proven guilty of political corruption of their right to practice politics for five years. The act will be presented before the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) for approval. Article 1 of the law states that it will be imposed on public officials, ministers, civil servants, parliamentarians, members of local councils who committed or took part in any act likely to corrupt political life and threaten the country's interests. Among other criminalized acts is the misuse of power to acquire a public position for oneself or for others. The Treachery Act has been the subject of wide controversy, with many rights advocates slamming plans to reintroduce it. “The act is illegal, and violates human rights and international agreements … it will not be used only against former regime officials … but against anybody else, which does not guarantee justice in the long run,” Ziad Abdel Tawab, deputy head of Cairo Center for Human Rights told Daily News Egypt. “Article 1 that lists those who will be subjected to it is similar to the original 1952 version used under the former regime of [ousted president Hosni Mubarak] and other dictatorial ones … making it possible for any entity to use it against any individual,” he added. The amended Treachery Act — which was originally drafted in 1952 following the revolution — aims to criminalize former regime officials in cases of political corruption. Penalties introduced in the amended version include dismissal from leadership positions; disqualification from parliamentary and local council membership; voting ban as well as a ban on contesting general elections, joining political parties or holding senior official positions. There are two ways an individual can be prosecuted by evoking this: the general prosecution may file a lawsuit against the person or a third party may file a compliant to the prosecutor with circumstantial evidence of wrongdoing to support his complaint. Such cases only fall under the jurisdiction of criminal courts. “There is a big question mark about the independence of the general prosecution,” Abdel-Tawab argued. “How can we guarantee that the cases will not be shelved?” he asked. The Treachery Act will be imposed on whoever is proven guilty of taking part in any of the criminalized acts or of incitment. Talk of reactivating the act by the Administrative Court began circulating last month, triggering fierce debate against it on both the legal and human rights levels, with speculation that it can be used against pro-reform protesters and activists. “Any skilled lawyer can abuse the many loopholes in the act … and imposed it on others who are not directly criminalized by the law or even clear his client,” Abdel-Tawab said. Cairo University law professor Anas Ga'afar, however, did not object to the law. “We are living in the aftermath of the Jan. 25 uprising, which will never allow this act to violate civil liberties or harm political life,” Ga'afar previously told DNE. “The January 25 Revolution created new realities, so SCAF cannot by any means use it to restrict freedoms, or why did the revolution happen in the first place?” he argued. Amended on Sept. 1, 1952, the act was evoked by the Cabinet to target members of the dissolved National Democratic Party (NDP). In the past the Treachery Act was used to criminalize all regime officials connected to the deposed King Farouk, punishing all politically corrupt officials who held public positions by sacking them from their posts and banning them from political activity for five years. “[As history has shown us] the act was not used against the revolutionaries back in 1952, and we cannot say that it was used against the opponents of the Nasser regime. We need to get rid of the NDP's regime officials before the next parliamentary elections,” Ga'afar said. –Additional reporting by Mai Shams El-Din
