From The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace:
Draft legislation for comprehensive personal status laws in Egypt revealed the Sisi regime’s inability to maintain a religious and social balance.
The proposal garnered massive backlash due to what was perceived as a peeling back of progress on women’s rights. Consequently, the bill was withdrawn, and President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi promised to issue a more balanced piece of legislation. Although the personal status law is unlikely to be implemented anytime soon, it serves as a reliable barometer for the regime’s interests.
This issue of stability drove the government to approve an official request to hold public gatherings. These gatherings were organized by women and feminist groups to protest a proposal in the draft law that restricts women’s right to initiate divorce “Khula’a” and to child custody.
The cabinet bill consolidates the various pieces of legislation and amendments that regulate the personal status affairs in Egypt and better supports the regime’s attitude toward legal codification. The purpose of this legal centralization is to control the judiciary by constraining judges’ discretionary authority and restricting any flexible interpretation deployed by judiciary staff. The Ministry of Justice has noticed a disparity in decrees issued by family courts and the intended implementation of the law. Litigants and their representatives are aware of this discrepancy and utilize these differences to decide in which courts to fill their cases.
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