Last October, novelist Rania Kamal appointed a lawyer to pursue unpaid maintenance after her former husband failed to comply with a Family Court judgment awarding spousal and child support.
Such proceedings allow a beneficiary of a final maintenance judgment to seek enforcement against a debtor who can pay but refuses. Article 76 bis of the law regulating procedures in personal-status matters permits a request for the debtor’s detention when the court establishes ability to pay and failure to comply.
Rania met the lawyer after appearing on a prominent women’s television programme to describe the non-payment. He contacted her, said he knew her husband and possessed documents and land contracts that would support her case. She entrusted him with it.
In April, however, she discovered that the lawyer had not delivered the enforceable copy of the judgment to the court bailiff for service on her former husband, although delivery should have occurred the previous November. He had told her the papers had been submitted and served. She waited for progress that never came.
She tells Zawia3 she learned what happened when she visited the court to collect part of the arrears, then totalling EGP 86,000. Before she revoked his power of attorney, he had claimed her former husband had been notified and paid an instalment.
A court employee told her the papers were incomplete and had not been properly registered. When confronted, she says, the lawyer refused to return the enforceable judgment unless she doubled his fee. “I covered transport and administrative costs and have evidence of transfers to his number. We agreed he would receive 15% of the maintenance after I collected it.”
Rania intended to file a police complaint at Shebin al-Qanater, but withdrew after the local Bar Association intervened to seek a settlement. She says she was then asked to sign a trust receipt for EGP 15,000 in fees despite the damage she attributed to the lawyer. She refused, instead proposing an agreement requiring return of the judgment and payment of the agreed 15% after collection. The lawyer sought 30%, she says, and negotiations failed.
Zawia3 contacted the local Bar Association for a response to the complaint but obtained no comment.
Financial harm and starting again
Rania describes the experience as shocking and harsh. Rather than approaching the end of her case, she had to begin again and bring proceedings to recover the enforceable judgment before seeking payment. Her child has a thyroid condition requiring regular tests and follow-up, alongside nursery fees and household costs.
Her retired father has supported them throughout. She also sold her gold to help cover living expenses while waiting to recover what was owed.
No official statistics establish the scale of such complaints. But legal and rights organisations report recurrent cases. Gawaher al-Taher, director of the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights’ access-to-justice programme, says women report cases lost or delayed through alleged deliberate neglect or collusion with husbands, including payments to lawyers to withhold or falsify evidence.
The centre identifies shortcomings through court reasoning and case procedures, she says. Judgments may reveal that necessary salary records or other documents were never properly submitted. Where a maintenance increase is refused because the evidence is missing, the reasons can show that a lawyer did not perform the required work.
Rana Mohamed, 35, from Giza, describes another distressing experience. After revoking one lawyer’s authority, she says she encountered problems with his successor too.
In 2023, she hired a lawyer to seek increased child maintenance. He initially told her the court had awarded another EGP 2,000. Contact was interrupted after she suffered an accident. When she later called, he said she had lost the case and blamed incorrect information from an assistant. She wondered how that could happen when the case had a barcode enabling its details to be checked.
Rana subsequently discovered, she says, that her lawyer had submitted her former husband’s 2019 salary statement in the 2023 case. She believes that prevented an increase. That explanation is her account of why the claim failed.
After deciding to pursue the court’s evidence requests herself, she approached the manager of her former husband’s employer. He told her the salary presented to the court was outdated and that the actual income was substantially higher.
An earlier lawyer had also left her waiting for two years after her child’s birth in 2018, she says. She believed delays were due to court procedures, only to discover the claim had not been filed until 2019, a year after she requested it. Without work or a monthly income, she repeatedly called asking when maintenance would be awarded.
That lawyer received the enforceable judgments but refused to give them to her without increased fees, Rana alleges. She also says an assistant told her he worked in another occupation, raising questions about compliance with professional rules.
Nadia Ali—a pseudonym—42, from Sharqia, says she received an eviction decision in 2023 concerning a shop inherited with her sisters. The dispute involved other heirs in her father’s family. She later learned, she says, that her appointed lawyer had not attended hearings or submitted sufficient documents to defend her entitlement.
Lawyers have professional duties to keep clients informed about case progress, judgments and appeal deadlines under the provisions of Lawyers Law No. 17 of 1983 cited in the report, including Articles 63 and 78.
Bar Association guidance on duties to clients.
Procedural weaknesses women pay for
Heba Adel, chair of the Egyptian Women Lawyers Foundation, says ineffective enforcement procedures and rudimentary income inquiries in maintenance cases create opportunities for manipulation and forged evidence, with consequences borne by women.
She proposes clear standards for establishing income, automatic deductions from a husband’s earnings, periodic increases reflecting salary changes and implementation of interim maintenance while cases are pending.
Leaving parties to obtain income evidence themselves by approaching employers, receiving statements and delivering them to court creates room for exploitation, she argues. Better procedures could close these gaps.
Adel says the foundation’s legal-support reports record far fewer instances of women lawyers exploiting such loopholes than men. She links this to some clients’ preference for women lawyers in personal-status and violence cases because they feel safer.
Parties can challenge documents during proceedings, she explains. Courts can require originals and, where forgery is alleged, follow the applicable challenge procedures and refer documents for technical examination. Professional misconduct may be pursued through Bar Association disciplinary processes; conduct constituting a crime may also be reported under criminal law.
Article 49 of Evidence Law No. 25 of 1968 provides for raising a forgery challenge through a report filed with the court registry, subject to its procedural requirements.
Entissar al-Saeed, chair of the Cairo Foundation for Development and Law, says women should retain copies of their power of attorney, case file and other documents, and obtain the case number to monitor progress. An enforceable judgment is normally issued once, making its return particularly important.
Forging salary evidence or knowingly using forged documents may attract criminal penalties depending on the document and circumstances. The Arabic report cites Penal Code Articles 206 and 214; the code distinguishes government instruments, official documents and private documents rather than applying one penalty automatically to every salary statement. The report also cites three-year sentences in the case known as the “Assiut girls”, concerning forged salary records submitted for increased maintenance.
The Arabic text additionally invokes Penal Code Articles 112 and 113 in connection with withholding papers. Those provisions concern public employees and property or documents held in the specified public-service context; they do not automatically establish that a private lawyer withholding a client’s file commits those particular offences.
Penal Code, Articles 112–113 and forgery provisions.
Article 89 of the Lawyers Law requires a lawyer whose mandate ends to account for money paid or collected, return papers not deposited in court and provide copies of submissions and notices received for the client. Clients may also seek civil compensation for harm caused by actionable professional errors.
Criminal lawyer Amira al-Banna says some apparent negligence may serve the opposing party. She alleges that lawyers sometimes receive money to avoid establishing a husband’s true income or assets. She says an opponent once offered her money not to investigate his overseas earnings and ownership of properties and cars.
Such conduct conflicts with Article 63’s duty to defend entrusted interests competently, with care and effort, and not assist or advise the opposing party, she says.
The right to retain documents and its limits
Some lawyers, however, regard retaining papers as customary protection against unpaid fees. Article 90 of Lawyers Law No. 17 of 1983 permits retention of client documents where there is a written fee agreement, or retention of collected money equivalent to agreed unpaid fees, within the provision’s conditions.
Without a written fee agreement, the lawyer may obtain copies of documents supporting a fee claim at the client’s expense and must return originals once copying costs are paid. Retention must not cause the client to miss a legal deadline and lose a right.
On 13 May 2023, the Supreme Constitutional Court declared the challenge in Case No. 73 of Judicial Year 35 inadmissible. This differs from a substantive judgment upholding every application of document retention. The Arabic report describes an underlying dispute involving a lawyer retaining an enforceable judgment without a written fee agreement and a six-month sentence imposed in May 2011. Article 90 remains part of the professional framework.
The constitutional-court decision.
A cassation lawyer who requested anonymity says refusing to return documents or submitting inaccurate evidence that harms a client can amount to serious professional misconduct and, depending on the facts, a criminal offence. Fee disputes do not justify causing substantial material and psychological harm.
She says clients can complain to prosecutors about withheld papers and point to court records showing the lawyer received them under a power of attorney. Such records may support investigation even when the client lacks a separate receipt. A complaint initiates examination; it does not itself establish guilt or guarantee an immediate conviction.
The lawyer notes that many women instead bring proceedings to obtain replacement enforceable judgments, losing time. Another route is a complaint to the local Bar Association, for disciplinary referral and investigation by the national association.
If misconduct is established, disciplinary sanctions may include suspension for up to three years, she says, alongside possible criminal proceedings where appropriate.
If a local association refuses to register or act on a complaint, a client may complain about that refusal to the national Bar Association, she adds.
Women’s legal empowerment
Al-Taher says the Egyptian Centre for Women’s Rights follows cases from the beginning of representation, asking lawyers for regular updates on decisions, hearing dates and receipt of judgments, and reviewing originating claims. Access to another organisation besides the lawyer can help protect clients when they report missed hearings or inaccurate information.
Legal empowerment requires continuous information about rights and how to claim them, she says. Incorrect outside advice can leave women vulnerable to exploitation and blackmail.
Clients need to understand expected case timelines, reasons for dismissal or particular judgments, hearing dates and whether attendance matters. “If a case is struck out, she must know why,” al-Taher says.
Asmaa Dabees, feminist activist and founder of the Bent al-Nil initiative, recommends following procedures with lawyers and attending hearings, including those presented as unimportant.
Clients should ask for complete explanations of developments and the litigation route. Relationships should not depend on absolute trust, she says, citing accounts of lawyers collecting fees while giving false hearing dates or imaginary progress. Clients owe the agreed fees, subject to additional work or cases covered by a further agreement.
The anonymous cassation lawyer advises signing a fee agreement at the lawyer’s office, documenting payments in a contract signed by both parties, and obtaining a signed receipt identifying the documents handed over for the case.
Missing oversight
Asked about supervision of performance and fees, the lawyer says effective oversight is lacking. She describes a proposed professional code announced by the national Bar Association in 2023 as still pending at the time of the report.
The proposed code was presented for general-assembly consideration with reference to constitutional Articles 77, 98 and 198 and the Lawyers Law’s professional-conduct provisions. It was intended to implement Article 62’s second paragraph, added by Law No. 147 of 2019.
The proposed professional code.
Among its principles, the lawyer identifies restrictions on dealings with a client’s opponent before the original representation ends, protecting confidentiality and avoiding conflicts of interest. Breaches could bring disciplinary referral. The proposal also addresses appearance, behaviour and professional performance in dealings with clients.
Without reliable statistics and effective oversight, some women face two legal battles: one to secure their rights in court, another against alleged failures by those entrusted to defend them. Withheld documents, delays and inaccurate information increase financial and psychological costs. Stronger professional supervision, an effective code and legal knowledge that enables clients to follow their cases are needed to keep the search for justice from becoming another source of harm.
