Egypt’s State Council allows re-trial of police personnel

Egypt’s State Council has come under growing criticism following a recent decision to allow the re-trial of police personnel previously convicted in military courts, Press TV reports.

The decision made on Saturday by Judge Mahmoud Fawzy, the vice-president of the State Council, has angered many Egyptians who are skeptical about the independence of the judicial system in Egypt.

“Now the people working for the Ministry of Interior have gained an advantage over the rest of the Egyptian people. This is a violent breach of the constitution because it is not entrenched in the principle of equality,” Mostafa Abbas, an Egyptian political analyst, told Press TV.

“It represents a big scandal to the Egyptian government. Actually, I don’t know how they can justify this kind of scandal,” an Egyptian citizen said.

The decision was made according to Articles 206 and 207 of the Egyptian constitution, passed into law in January 2014, saying the police force is considered a civil entity, and is supervised by an internal supreme council, which includes members of the country’s State Council legislative committee, who are in charge of managing legal affairs related to the personnel.

This comes as military tribunals for civilians are on the rise and hundreds of citizens are being referred to military courts under the aegis of a draconian protest law.

According to the law decreed by Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi on October 27, all “public and vital facilities” will be placed under military rule for the next two years. The law requires state prosecutors to refer any crimes in the aforementioned places to their military counterparts.

One of the most recent examples was the case of 15 university students who were charged for allegedly instigating violence on campus.

An Egyptian prosecutor referred the students from Zagazig University in the Nile Delta province of Sharqiyah to a military court on Sunday.

More than 11,000 people have been tried by Egypt’s military courts since the 2011 uprising that toppled the country’s former dictator, Hosni Mubarak.

The Egyptian government has been cracking down on any opposition since Mohamed Morsi, the country’s first democratically-elected president, was ousted in July 2013 in a military coup led by Sisi.