National Dialogue to submit proposal to presidency to curb endless pretrial detention

A National Dialogue meeting on Sunday saw participants finalize draft recommendations to alter the use of laws on remand detention, a pretrial measure that keeps many defendants waiting indefinitely in prison on the grounds of their suspected involvement in political activities, like demonstrations or publishing commentary critical of the government.

The step is the latest to address cries from inside and outside Egypt for the release of prisoners held in remand for political cases.

The meeting saw the dialogue’s working group on remand detention discuss and finalize the proposal, said Board of Trustees member and defense lawyer Negad al-Borai, who attended Sunday’s session and was optimistic about the process.

Borai told Mada Masr that the finalized proposal will be sent to the presidency, along with lists of detainees recommended for release.

All that remains, said Borai, is for the state's legislative and executive bodies to adopt the recommendations. The crisis in remand detention did not stem from the current laws, but from the ways the executive bodies applied them, he said.

Sunday’s draft, which Borai said will be revealed to the public later, was based on proposals made in July by lawmakers, former detainees, journalists and criminal law experts. The specialists were brought together by the National Dialogue to discuss how to protect defendants from spending extended periods of time in custody.

Borai described the final product of the sessions as “balanced and accurate,” saying they reflected the proposals made in July’s specialized sessions of the National Dialogue, a state-sponsored initiative launched two years ago.

Suggestions fielded in the July sessions, including by former detainee and defense lawyer Mohamed al-Baqer, included an overhaul of the legal time span allowed for remand detention and legal prohibitions on authorities introducing new suspected charges months after arrest to extend defendants’ time in remand.

“What I can say is that all the proposals that people made found their way into the recommendations. They came out fully and clearly expressing all opinions,” Borai said. He reiterated comments he made to Mada Masr in July, stating that there is “general agreement among the entire Egyptian political community,” including in the government, opposition, human rights activists and even pro-government parliamentary majority parties, that remand detention is a crisis that needs to be solved.

Making remand detention a measure of last resort, banning the use of remand detention in speech-related cases and compensating those wrongfully detained were among other advisory opinions.

Currently, lawmakers in the House of Representatives’ subcommittee on Constitutional and Legislative Affairs are discussing a bill in parallel. The MPs met in July to grant approval to a draft law related to the Criminal Procedures Code, which specifically aims to alter some of the provisions affecting remand detention.

The bill includes a number of proposals similar to those made in the National Dialogue, such as reducing the legally licensed duration of imprisonment and setting a time limit on it, providing compensation for wrongful remand detention, and adopting alternatives to the procedure.