Criminalization of crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression and genocide is a positive step towards the fight against impunity in Egypt

Cairo, 20^th  August 2014

Criminalization of crimes against humanity, war crimes and the crime of aggression and genocide is a positive step towards the fight against impunity in Egypt

 

The Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Professions (ACIJLP) is very pleased with the draft law against genocide, war and aggression and crimes against humanity, which is currently being studied by the Egyptian government and approved by the Ministerial Council on Wednesday, 08/13/2014 to amend the wording of Article 32 for determining judicial districts, which will consider crimes that are punishable by this law.

The ACIJLP believes that the issuance of national legislation to criminalize the most serious crimes, which included in most of the international covenants, represents a positive step towards the consolidation of Criminal Justice and is considered a good step towards the fight against impunity, especially in the most serious crimes, which included in the bill.

The ACIJLP believes that the bill has included an extremely important point, namely irrelevance of official capacity of a person or immunities determined for him as a reason for exemption from criminal responsibility or mitigating punishment of the crime of war or any crime against humanity. Thus, this bill agreed largely with the Statute of the international Criminal Court.

In spite of the numerous positive points contained in the bill, but the ACIJLP believes that in order to consisting the bill with Egypt's international covenants and legislation and commitments, it is worth giving consideration to allocate unified criminal circle that belongs to the natural judiciary to adjudicate in criminal proceedings related to these crimes.

The ACIJLP calls upon the concerned Egyptian authorities to take necessary measures to hold training sessions for investigators, judges, adjutant bodies on the definition of the elements of these crimes and techniques of criminal investigation, as well as techniques of determining  criminal proceedings related to these crimes, in addition to organizing intensive  training visits to judges and investigators about the International Criminal Court, and the progress of the issues and investigations, and exchanging experiences with criminal Court judges and the Attorney General about this matter.