No to Military Trials slams changes to contested law

The No to Military Trials campaign issued a statement on Monday slamming interim President Adly Mansour's amendments to the Military Judiciary Law.

The amendments amounted to nothing more than “cosmetic changes to deformed content,” the group said in its statement.

On Sunday, Mansour ratified a number of amendments to Law 25/1996 to allow for verdicts issued by military misdemeanor courts to be appealed, and also to grant wide latitude to the newly created Supreme Judicial Committee, which will be tasked with looking into appeals of military court-issued verdicts.

The amendments also allowed for implementing the same litigation procedures stipulated by the Criminal Procedures Law in verdicts issued in absentia, and also stipulated that Egypt’s grand mufti must be consulted before handing down a death sentence.

No to Military Trials warned that the new amendments could be used as “false propaganda to justify such a flagrant violation against civilians,” referring to the military trial of civilians.

The new amendments were tantamount to a confession that past military trials of civilians were unfair and contradictory to the principles of justice, the group declared. “This confession is also contradictory to statements by supporters of the former military council, former President Mohamed Morsi, and Mansour himself," the statement added.

The fact that Mansour amended the law in the absence of an elected parliament — which would normally discuss any amendments and their implications before issuing legislation — was another major point of criticism for the group.

"The decree violates Article 156 of the Constitution only allowing the president to issue and amend laws exclusively in cases when an urgent matter that needs swift measures," the statement pointed out.

The amendments also did not take into account major criticisms of the contentious law that the No to Military Trials and other groups had voiced. Rights groups have condemned articles regarding the military judiciary’s subordination to the Defense Ministry, the appointment of its judges by the Defense Ministry, the military judiciary’s ability to specify its own powers of jurisdiction, the difficulty in appointing civil defense lawyers and under which circumstances civilians may be sent to the military courts.

"The amendments focused primarily on cosmetic amendments that are not successful in denying the very basic fact that military trials are unjust," the statement argued.