Egypt's Constitution Between 2012 and 2014

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Following the removal of Hosni Mubarak in the wake of the January 25th Revolution, Egyptians embarked on a transition plan that included as one of its primary aims the adoption of a new constitution.  Instead of resulting in a political consensus, however, debates about the new constitution led to a series of constitutional crises that in each case resulted  in the effective empowerment of the military as the ultimate constitutional arbiter, and paved the way for the 2013 military coup.  Between 2011 and 2014, Egypt was governed by a series of interim constitutions that owed their origins to the express fiat of the military, and indeed, were described simply as "constitutional declarations."   By contrast, the 2012 Constitution, and the subsequent amendments thereto following the coup in 2013, the 2014 Constitution, were preceded by formal constitutional deliberations and were submitted to popular vote for approval.  In the eyes of the supporters of the June 30 movement that paved the way for the military coup, or at least in the eyes of its liberal supporters, the 2014 Constitution was intended to correct the illiberal or Islamist provisions of the 2012 Constitution which, in their opinion, had been forced down the throat of the Egyptian public by a coalition of Islamist actors.  This paper will compare the two documents in light of two different concerns, the first, establishing effective democratic governance, and the second, establishing an effective set of liberal rights and freedoms, with a view to establishing the deep tension in Egypt between the goal of democratic self-government and the goal of liberal rights and freedoms.  It will conclude by offering an account of freedom grounded in the republican ideal of effective self-government as the critical prerequisite to any meaningful liberal political order.

Mohammad H. Fadel is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, which he joined in January 2006. Professor Fadel wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on legal process in medieval Islamic law while at the University of Chicago. Professor Fadel was admitted to the Bar of New York in 2000 and practiced law with the firm of Sullivan & Cromwell LLP in New York, New York, where he worked on a wide variety of corporate finance transactions and securities-related regulatory investigations. Professor Fadel also served as a law clerk to the Honorable Paul V. Niemeyer of the United States Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit and the Honorable Anthony A. Alaimo of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. Professor Fadel has published numerous articles in Islamic legal history, and Islam and liberalism.

Cost : Free and open to the public

Sponsor(s): Center for Near Eastern Studies, International & Comparative Law Program (ICLP) at UCLA School of Law