Before the new Criminal Procedures Law enters force in October, the Court of Cassation, Egypt’s highest judicial body, established in mid-April a contentious principle: Article 22 of the new law permits reconciliation in cases of premeditated murder and assault leading to death, with the result of commuting death sentences to life imprisonment or aggravated imprisonment, should the offender reconcile with the victim’s heirs, even before a final ruling is issued.
Criminal Procedures Law No. 174 of 2025, signed by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi and published in the Official Gazette, allowed for the first time the recognition of reconciliation with the victim’s heirs as a legal ground for sentence reduction, potentially replacing the death penalty with life imprisonment, aggravated imprisonment, or lighter penalties at the court’s discretion.
The Court of Cassation has stated that it has already begun applying this approach in some cases before it officially enters force, drawing on leniency provisions in the Penal Code. Supporters of Article 22 argue that expanding reconciliation could curb the issuance and execution of death sentences, at a time when international pressure to restrict or abolish the penalty is mounting.
Critics, on the other hand, warn that the provision’s current wording could entrench a disparity in the chances of escaping execution: the ability to benefit from reconciliation becomes tied to the financial capacity to pay large sums in compensation, or to the social and tribal influence capable of brokering settlements.
Low-Income Egyptians Can No Longer Afford Low-Income Housing
Article 22 and the Differential Treatment of Citizens
Mohamed Basal, a legal researcher and writer, says the recent ruling has opened the door to establishing reconciliation in premeditated murder cases and assault-leading-to-death cases before all levels of the court system, up to the point of a final, unappealable ruling, effectively cementing the application of Article 22 as the law more favorable to the defendant.
He tells Zawia3 that while this ruling is the first direct application of Article 22, it is not the first to acknowledge the possibility of invoking it before October. Earlier, certain judicial chambers had already signaled that the provision could be applied before its formal effective date whenever reconciliation was genuinely achieved, something that was absent in some prior cases where courts declined to apply it due to the lack of any actual agreement.
Basal expects the activation of Article 22 to produce a marked expansion in attempts to reach settlements between offenders and victims’ heirs, which may in turn shape the course of criminal proceedings from their initiation through the hearing of appeals at the Court of Cassation.
He calls for a legal and societal re-examination of Article 22, along with an assessment of the experience of reconciliation in unintentional homicide cases, which has been in operation since 2006. He argues that the absence of regulatory safeguards raises serious concerns about the differential treatment of defendants along financial lines, and the lack of guarantees to prevent manipulation of, or undue influence over, the heirs’ rights.
Basal clarifies that reconciliation applies to offenses against life and encompasses premeditated murder in its various forms: those accompanied by premeditation or lying in wait; those committed using poison or narcotic substances; and those not accompanied by aggravating circumstances. It also extends to murder linked to another felony under Article 234 of the Penal Code, offenses involving participation in a killing, and crimes of assault, wounding, or administering harmful substances that result in death. The legislature, by contrast, has excluded crimes committed for terrorist purposes from the scope of reconciliation entirely.
Malek Adly, director of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, describes Article 22 as “a novel and contentious provision,” noting that it was not part of the bill that civil society organizations and rights advocates helped draft, but was added during parliamentary discussions following a proposal by Al-Azhar Grand Imam Ali Gomaa, before the legislative committee adopted it.
In conversation with Zawia3, Adly sees a genuine split embedded in the provision. On one hand, it can be seen as a mechanism for avoiding execution in the face of the limited scope for reviewing final judgments. On the other, it opens the door to financial settlements in murder cases, which could turn reconciliation in practice into a means of purchasing sentence reductions.
He warns that the provision’s real danger lies in how easily it can be instrumentalized, stressing that the philosophy behind criminalization rests on a defendant’s certainty that a decisive penalty will follow, and that making a path available to circumvent it may undermine deterrence. He also points to the absence of any treatment of recidivism in the provision’s text, concluding that the current wording calls either for much stricter safeguards or for a fundamental rethinking of the philosophy of punishment itself, toward either abolishing the death penalty or establishing a clear and transparent compensation system.
Military Academy Expands Control Over Civilian Jobs in Egypt
The Right to Life
The death penalty is an active part of Egypt’s judicial system, provided for in the Penal Code for a number of the most serious offenses, chief among them premeditated murder accompanied by aggravating circumstances and terrorism-related crimes. The sentence is handed down by criminal courts and does not become final until the Court of Cassation issues a binding ruling, after which it is referred to the president for ratification, sentence reduction, or substitution.
Over recent years, rights organizations have called for a moratorium on death sentences and their replacement with custodial penalties, in observance of the right to life enshrined in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Egypt is a party. Article 6 of the Covenant provides that “every human being has the inherent right to life” and that this right shall be protected by law, that no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of it, and that states that have not abolished the death penalty must restrict it to “the most serious crimes,” with full guarantees for the right of defense.
Entesar Al-Said, a Court of Cassation attorney and head of the board of trustees of the Cairo Institute for Development and Law, believes that discussion of Article 22 cannot be separated from the broader question of the death penalty itself, and regards any mechanism that helps reduce it as a positive step.
She tells Zawia3 that reconciliation remains contingent on the acceptance of the victim’s family: if they refuse, the sentence is carried out; if they agree, the penalty is reduced. She does not see this as diminishing victims’ rights but rather as opening an alternative path, noting that life imprisonment can achieve deterrence without resorting to execution.
She acknowledges concerns about differential treatment based on financial capacity, but points out that the heirs’ decision remains the decisive factor regardless of money. She stresses the need for clear regulatory frameworks to govern reconciliation, reaffirming her position in favor of abolishing the death penalty and replacing it with life imprisonment.
What About Honor Crimes?
Aziza Al-Taweel, a lawyer with the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights, believes the application of Article 22 raises complex legal and rights-related questions due to its direct bearing on cases touching the right to life.
She tells Zawia3 that the most prominent dimension of the controversy concerns the provision’s impact on criminal evidentiary frameworks, as the availability of reconciliation could affect the course of certain cases, particularly with respect to the retraction of testimony. She argues that regulating reconciliation within a legal framework could achieve a balance between victims’ and defendants’ rights, provided it ensures that the crime itself is not denied and that the heirs’ freedom to decide is genuinely protected.
She expresses concern about the particular dynamics of domestic violence cases and what are known as “honor crimes,” where the victim’s next of kin may themselves belong to the same family circle as the perpetrator, complicating any assessment of whether consent to reconciliation is genuinely free. She also notes that certain judicial chambers had already tended toward sentence reduction in intra-family killings based on Article 17 of the Penal Code, but that extending the effect of reconciliation in the new provision could shift judicial practice in these cases on a broader scale.
In what are known as “honor crimes,” where men kill female family members, some courts have at times applied sentence reductions under Article 17 of the Penal Code. While no official statistics exist, data from the Violence Crimes Observatory run by the Edrak Foundation reveals a steady upward trend. In 2024 alone, it recorded 1,195 violent crimes against women, including 363 killings, compared to 813 crimes in 2021. Roughly 72 percent were committed by the husband or family members.
Al-Taweel argues that the class dimension is unavoidably present in this debate: access to reconciliation is in many cases tied to financial capacity, opening the door to unequal legal standing among defendants.
She confirms that applying the provision before its official entry into force is a well-established extension of the principle of “the law more favorable to the defendant” in constitutional and criminal jurisprudence, which is applied whenever it operates in the defendant’s favor even before it formally takes effect.
On April 20, the “Stop the Death Penalty in Egypt” campaign released its fourth report, “The Road to the Gallows 4,” drawing on a documented database compiled throughout 2025. The report revealed 541 death sentences handed down during the year across all levels of the judiciary, with 20 actually carried out, compared to 13 in 2024 and 8 in 2023. The campaign called for an immediate moratorium on executions, their replacement in the most serious crimes with life imprisonment without conditional release, and legislative reforms guaranteeing fair trials.
541 death sentences in a single year. 20 carried out. Article 22 has not yet taken effect. The real debate has not started.
