Death sentence for hundreds puts Egypt’s judiciary under scrutiny

Harsh sentences after short trial raises questions of whether judges are acting on evidence, under government pressure, or out of anti-Islamist bias.

People outside a court in Egypt's southern province of Minya react to the death sentences passed on the Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Badie and hundreds of other Islamists on April 28, 2014. Khaled Desouki / AFPShow less

The mass death sentences passed against nearly 700 supporters of Egypt’s deposed president on Monday will cause uproar among the nation’s Western backers and rights groups, much as a similar verdict by the same judge did last month.

While the sentences, or at least most of them, will most likely be commuted on appeal, the actions of the judge raise serious questions about Egypt’s judiciary, a long-time bastion of integrity and independence.

It also draws attention to the direction of the crackdown by the interim, military-backed government against the Muslim Brotherhood.

Judge Said Youssef sentenced the men in a court in Minya province south of Cairo. During the same sitting, he reduced most of the death sentences he handed to 529 defendants last month to life imprisonment.

The Egyptian judiciary has been repeatedly dragged into politics since the 2011 popular uprising, with senior judges sharing their political views with the media and the former president, the Islamist Mohammed Morsi, criticising judges.

The Supreme Constitutional Court also locked horns with Mr Morsi for most of his one year in office, chiefly over a 2012 verdict that disbanded a parliament stacked with Islamists. The majority of the nation’s judges disagreed with his policies, especially a November 2012 decree that placed his decisions above any oversight, including by the courts. Many of them also refused to supervise a referendum held in December 2012 on a new constitution drafted by Islamists loyal to Mr Morsi.

Since his removal nearly 10 months ago, the judiciary has taken a tough line on the Brotherhood as well as prominent youth leaders who played a key role in the uprising that ended Hosni Mubarak’s 30 years in power.

It is impossible to say whether the harsh sentences against the Brotherhood are inspired by the government, rooted in the judiciary’s own conviction of the defendants’ guilt, or inspired by their opposition to the Islamists.

Underlining the prevailing anti-Brotherhood sentiment amongthe judiciary, about 75 judges who criticised Mr Morsi’s removal in July have been suspended from the Judges Club, a powerful union-like grouping, and are facing disciplinary action for engaging in political activity.

However, sentencing as many as 683 or 528 people to death after brief hearings is definitely rare, if not unheard of. That the judge in question is most likely to commute the latest mass death sentences will do little to cushion the flood of criticism likely to come Egypt’s way.

But Egypt’s estimated 15,000 judges and prosecutors do not operate in a vacuum. The Egyptian media praised last month’s mass death sentences as a triumph and have been zealously cheering the military since it removed Mr Morsi last July along with the crackdown that has to date killed hundreds and detained at least 16,000 Islamists, including Mr Morsi.

The former president and most of the Brotherhood leaders are facing trials on charges that range from espionage, conspiring with foreign powers to inciting murder. Some of the charges carry a death penalty.

During Mr Mubarak’s rule, the judiciary had its fair share of his loyalists, with many of them still in office now. However, the courts did not always follow declared government policies and, in some cases, judges went against the regime’s wishes and freed or handed light sentences to defendants the government clearly wanted put away for a long time.

Abdel Fattah El Sissi, the former military chief who removed Mr Morsi has yet to publicly speak about the recent mass death sentences, but many activists and rights lawyers believe the retired field marshal was inhibited by his own boundaries as a presidential hopeful with no formal executive powers.

Mr El Sissi is widely expected to comfortably win the vote and usher in his rule with a grand gesture of reconciliation that would include the release from jaily of hundreds of inmates convicted on weak charges like breaking the law on street protests.

But it is unlikely for the career infantry officer to let anyone with blood on his hands to go free.