Malek Adly is a lawyer, director of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights and one of the founders of the Front to Defend Egypt’s Protesters. He was previously arrested in the Maadi area of Cairo in 2016, in execution of an arrest warrant issued against him on charges of inciting protests on 25 April against the Egyptian government’s handover of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir to the Saudi authorities, in the protests known at the time as “Land Friday“.
The prosecution at the time charged him with attempting to overthrow the regime, inciting change to the state’s constitution and system, joining groups seeking to obstruct the provisions of the constitution and laws, harming national unity and social peace, and broadcasting false news, statements and rumours that disturb public security.
During his pretrial detention in Case No. 4016 of 2016, Shubra El-Kheima Administrative, Adly was subjected to systematic arbitrary practices by the prison administration to abuse him and torture him physically and psychologically. He was released after spending about 114 days in detention, but the Egyptian authorities soon issued a travel ban against him, and he was barred from boarding a plane to Paris from Cairo airport in 2016.
Asked for his assessment of the file of political prisoners in Egypt, amid national dialogue sessions over which Egyptian political actors are divided between supporters and opponents, Adly tells us: “I believe the pretrial detention crisis does not need a national dialogue; rather, it needs the implementation of the criminal procedure articles related to pretrial detention, and dealing with these cases under the law, to solve the problem of tens of thousands of people in pretrial detention.”
We at Zawia3 interviewed him about a number of files he is working on, in his capacity as director of the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, a non-governmental legal organisation that adopts the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, international human rights conventions and the recommendations of the International Labour Organization as the reference for its work.
Here is the text of the interview…
Where Are Workers’ Rights Heading?
In recent years, some employers have repeatedly resorted to total closure, declaring bankruptcy or selling company assets to evade paying workers’ dues or avoid implementing court rulings in their favour, even though there are controls under Labour Law No. (12) of 2003; Article (122) stipulates that a number of conditions must be met before taking such decisions, otherwise the dismissal is considered arbitrary, including compensation of two months’ full wage for each year of work at the establishment.
– Does closure, bankruptcy or sale mean the loss of workers’ rights and dues?
Under the general law of debts, workers’ dues take priority over debts to the public treasury and taxes. When any company or institution declares bankruptcy, its assets are supposed to be liquidated; for joint-stock companies, liability is limited to the company’s assets, but the problem is that some institutions have no assets when they declare bankruptcy, such as press institutions and printing and publishing companies (for example, what happened in the crisis of the Al-Tahrir newspaper). There are enforceable court rulings against the institution’s legal representative, but no assets to enforce them against, which requires intervention by the authorities regarding this type of liquidation of institutions that own no assets, and taking guarantees from them in case of bankruptcy to pay workers’ dues, especially since they are capital companies, not partnerships (in partnerships, the partners’ private funds can be seized).
Requests are submitted to the relevant authorities and legal procedures pursued, to verify the truthfulness of the institution’s legal representative’s claim that it is making losses, and to discuss the nature of the closure that will take place, whether partial or total, and how workers’ dues will be paid, so that the matter does not turn into a kind of “thuggery” against the workers.
The Ministry of Labour is supposed to be responsible for this, using its powers over employers to collect workers’ debts and the judicial enforcement powers some of its employees hold, since this constitutes an attack on the right to work and a refusal to pay dues, which is a misdemeanour under the law. The judiciary previously heard similar cases before 2012, and a two-year prison sentence was issued against the Saudi investor who owned the Tanta Flax Company, but this no longer happens now, even though workers and lawyers play their role; the role of official bodies in protecting workers’ rights and dues is absent.
– The government decided that no establishment may be closed except by an official government decision, yet the management of the Ceramica Venicia factory decided to close it. Do you think the decision is actually enforceable?
Decisions are enforceable if there is political will at the head of the authorities to give priority to the worker’s interest and balance the official’s view with the investor’s interest, so that the climate does not repel investment on the one hand, while workers’ rights are guaranteed on the other, and if the authorities oblige investors and businessmen to comply with the minimum wage.
– Three months after the National Council for Wages issued its decision to raise the minimum wage for the private sector, many workers in the investment and private sectors suffer from the decision not being applied… In your opinion, how can wage justice be achieved for workers in Egypt?
There will be no wage justice unless wages are linked to prices, and it is unreasonable that some people still receive a third of the minimum wage.
Social insurance and the ministries of finance and labour are responsible for ensuring the minimum wage is applied, through the judicial enforcement powers they hold and their authority to hold violators accountable, impose fines and penalties and refer them to the Public Prosecution on charges of human trafficking, since this is a form of slavery.
The minimum wage decision of six thousand pounds must have been preceded by research and feasibility studies before the political authorities took it, to ensure employers do not lose money and that it can be applied in all establishments; yet the greed of capital makes them refuse to apply it in violation of the law, and they are supposed to be punished. There is also a problem with the compensation courts award to workers, which should be linked to the minimum wage, not the actual wage the worker receives, while taking into account inflation and the devaluation of the currency. In arbitrary dismissal cases, the court should award compensation of no less than a year’s wage for the worker until the case ends, so that he can live, but the courts no longer use this forgotten article of the labour law, which could solve many problems.
– The new labour law has not yet been passed. What are its most prominent features? Will it ease workers’ burdens?
When the existence of a new labour bill was raised, we were waiting for the relevant parties, lawyers, independent unions and institutions concerned with workers’ rights, to be invited to a societal dialogue on it, but that did not happen.
The leaked draft of the bill showed that it brings nothing new, except regarding the termination of the employment relationship; the draft has not been officially disclosed, and the accuracy of what was leaked cannot be verified.
– Do you have estimates of the number of workers who have been arrested or held in pretrial detention because of their participation in labour protests or strikes?
Egypt’s labour force reaches about 25 million people, and there are no means to count arrests and violations and estimate their numbers, but they happened, for example, with some Mahalla Spinning workers who took part in protests demanding the minimum wage.
Violations against Universal workers previously reached the point where one worker set himself on fire. In general, some workers are sometimes arrested if the protests go outside the company, and protests inside factories are sometimes handled by security in agreement with their managements, especially if they belong to the public sector, such as Mahalla Spinning. As for labour leaders who are arrested, that is because of their political views.
As for the labour cases followed by the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, they have been limited to pretrial detention, and no sentences have been issued against them.
– How do you see the tragedy of journalists facing arbitrary dismissal?
Their tragedy is part of the tragedy of arbitrary dismissal of any wage worker, but for journalists it often takes a punitive form targeting independent journalists and those with different opinions and convictions, which many journalists have experienced.
The Journalists Syndicate must find a mechanism to compensate arbitrarily dismissed journalists, especially since the press regulation law prohibits dismissal without the syndicate’s approval, but it has become one of the forgotten laws; the syndicate must also take punitive measures against institutions that resort to arbitrary dismissal.
Forced Removals and Public Benefit
Since President El-Sisi came to power in 2014, his government has pursued policies of forced removal under the pretext of public benefit and major national projects. This has led to the displacement of tens of thousands of residents in vital areas, especially in central Cairo, but what is striking in the last two years is that it has also begun removing Cairo’s historic cemeteries, angering Egyptians, who have always preserved the sanctity of the dead.
– What are the latest developments in the lawsuit your center filed to halt the removal of Cairo’s historic cemeteries? Do these removals violate the law?
The removal of Cairo’s historic cemeteries is a complex issue; it violates the Constitution and the law, but this can only be proven through the courts.
At the Egyptian Center, we obtained the papers proving that Cairo’s historic cemeteries lie within an archaeological belt and contain a unique architectural style connected to Egypt’s history. When we went to the State Council court on behalf of a number of antiquities and heritage specialists, the court considered that we had no standing in the case, even though we are Egyptian citizens. It seems the State Council is changing the rules of standing and interest in litigation in cases of public affairs and the protection of public property, narrowing the scope of citizens’ standing and interest, contrary to the trends that prevailed before 2018, such as the cases of gas exports to the Israeli occupation and Tiran and Sanafir.
There is also the problem of Law No. (32) of 2014, which prevents citizens from challenging state contracts, eliminating part of the scope of standing and interest in litigation related to public funds and the public interest in Egypt.
– The Administrative Judiciary Court had reserved for judgment the two lawsuits filed by owners and occupants of properties in Nazlet El-Semman to halt the decisions to evacuate and demolish more than 390 properties… What are the latest developments in that case?
The court referred the file to experts to inspect the sites on the ground, to prove that they are not informal settlements and that they have utilities, and to examine the residents’ ownership contracts. We have two expert inspection sessions before the court issues its ruling in the case.
Privatising Health
In the last week of last April, Egyptians woke up to the news that the House of Representatives’ Health Committee had approved a bill allowing the private sector to invest in the healthcare sector, a law under which the private sector would have the right to establish government health facilities, manage them and manage existing facilities.
After Parliament’s approval, a state of anger prevailed, accompanied by questions from the Egyptian street about the fate of the cost of medical and health services provided by government hospitals, coinciding with the decline in their incomes and their financial struggles as a result of the harsh economic measures the authorities have pursued since the economic reform programme was applied in 2016.
– Do you think this law could lead to the privatisation of the health sector? And what is the danger of that?
Yes, it will lead to the privatisation of the health sector. Public utility concession contracts are an old problem: the Suez Canal concession contract led to the Tripartite Aggression against Egypt, and former president Mohamed Hosni Mubarak warned against concession contracts in 2007, but talk about them stopped for years because of the political circumstances after the revolution.
We were later surprised that they had become one of the authorities’ solutions to the problem of the right to health, at a time when the comprehensive health insurance umbrella has not been applied at full capacity, and hospitals refuse to apply the health minister’s decision not to refuse emergency cases, as they require payment first.
The authorities saw that they could not operate these health facilities and decided to grant them to the private sector to operate, which means raising the level of service and therefore its cost, borne by the citizen or by the comprehensive health insurance system, which has not been fully activated. The law also poses a danger to the numbers of medical staff, as cooperation with them will be as needed.
The right to health is absolute and must be the responsibility of the authorities, and investment in the medical sector must not be left completely unregulated and without a set time limit.
Human Rights and the Detainees File
The file of detainees and pretrial detention is one of the most controversial human rights files in Egypt today, as politicians who took part in the national dialogue sessions expect the authorities to respond to their demands to release prisoners of conscience and political prisoners, but in reality the laws currently applied point to more violations in the future.
– The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said in a 2020 report that laws restricting freedoms had been enacted in recent years. What is your comment?
There are laws restricting freedoms and notorious laws, such as some laws related to publishing, confiscation and printed matter, and imprisonment over publishing cases or expressing opinions must be confronted, so that all citizens become interested in the public sphere.
– In light of the national dialogue and the lists of the Presidential Pardon Committee, do you see a breakthrough in the file of political prisoners?
I believe the pretrial detention crisis does not need a national dialogue; rather, it needs the implementation of the criminal procedure articles related to pretrial detention, and dealing with these cases under the law, to solve the problem of tens of thousands of people in pretrial detention.
Whether there is a breakthrough or not depends on the number of people released, and the last release by presidential pardon was last year. We note that the pace of releases and case closures has slowed, and more people are being arrested. We submitted a request to the prosecution to release 20 people who have exceeded two years in pretrial detention.
Pretrial detention wrongs the detainees, their families and their lawyers, and months or years of a person’s life should not be wasted because of a tweet or a post on social media, while there must be openness and frankness about the reasons for pretrial detention and the facts about those involved in bloodshed and who took up arms must be revealed.
– Egypt is preparing to submit its Universal Periodic Review report on human rights to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva next October. How do you assess the file in recent years, especially after the last periodic review at the UN?
We are still waiting for what will be submitted, and we are not part of writing the report; the Egyptian Center’s priorities are economic and social rights.
There are two different points of view regarding the national dialogue, but our assessment of the situation is based on the effects on the ground, especially the rights to life, health, housing and education and basic freedoms. I do not have an answer to this question, because the world is not black and white, but we still have problems with laws restricting freedoms and imprisonment over publishing cases, others related to procedural guarantees for defendants before courts and prosecutions, and problems related to the rights to health and housing.
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