Egypt’s Supreme Constitutional Court has rejected appeals to overturn a 2014 law, which stripped the right of Egyptians to take legal action against privatisation.
The move has raised concerns that selling off important industrial and agricultural companies will remove any public input from the process.
The appeals were submitted in 2014 by the Egyptian Centre for Economic and Social Rights. The organisation sought to overturn amendments introduced by Adly Mansour, Egypt’s acting president for one year between the rule of ousted president Mohamed Morsi and current president Abdel Fattah El Sisi, who came to power in 2014.
Mr Mansour’s amendments mandated that the only private individuals who could contest privatisation deals undertaken by the state were those with “personal or in-kind rights over the money subject to the contract”, according to statements made by Mahmoud Ghanim, the supreme court’s vice president, to Al Shorouk, a local daily.
Formerly, under the rule of former president Hosni Mubarak, citizens could take legal action against privatisation deals they did not agree with.
Mr Ghanim said the amendments had been carried out to stabilise the country’s economy and ensure it met its international contractual obligations at a time of political instability.
“Mansour’s amendments were implemented at a time when the country was going through extraordinary circumstances to stabilise the economy,” Negad Borai, a rights lawyer, told The National. “But there are many examples of parliaments or governments revising such decisions and nullifying previous contracts or refusing to pay back loans they feel were founded on corruption, for example.”
Mr Mansour’s amendments were later approved into the constitution by Egypt’s parliament, which reconvened in 2016 for the first time since being dissolved after the 2011 Arab Spring protests.
The ECESR’s appeal had been submitted as part of a class-action suit on behalf of employees at the Nubaria Seed Production Company (Nubasid – formerly a fully state-owned company since 1976) who vehemently opposed an earlier deal to privatise 100 per cent of the company’s assets.
The supreme court’s ruling, issued on Saturday, comes at a time when Egypt’s government is embarking on its controversial “State Property Policy” through which it is aiming to bring in private investments to compensate for a glaring financing gap of about $17 billion until the end of the 2025/26 financial year, according to a recent IMF report on Egypt.
The IMF predicted that the gap would probably be filled through the sale of state assets, particularly to GCC countries, a number of whom have already acquired Egyptian state holdings in several companies.
The policy seeks to increase the private sector’s role in the country’s economy, Prime Minister Moustafa Madbouly said in May, whose government hopes to raise private sector involvement from 30 per cent of the country’s economy to 65 per cent.
The ruling has been met with concern from rights groups and labour unions in Egypt, who fear it will reduce accountability during privatisation deals. It has also raised concerns about the sale of Egyptian sovereign holdings to foreign entities.
“From a legal standpoint, the court’s decision makes sense, it would be disorganised to allow anyone off the street to interfere with a government privatisation contract,” Mr Borai continued.
“However, there is also a political side to this ruling and therein lies the problem. The decision has highlighted the failures of parliament and the judiciary, both of which are basically non-functional, to protect civilian interests.”
Although parliament is technically functioning and had approved Mr Mansour's amendments, Mr Borai raised concerns shared by other rights lawyers that the house is packed with pro-government MPs.
Mr Borai explains that in the absence of such democratic channels, rights lawyers have repeatedly found themselves in a role meant to be played by parliament, explaining that there should be more direct means through which Egyptians can contest the sale of state assets to foreign entities, and labour unions can fight the sale of large portions of industries to private sector players.
He said that this absence of parliament's role is why the supreme court took eight years to issue a ruling on the Mansour amendments.
“The fact that a rights lawyer had to take on a lawsuit on behalf of a trade union means that our democratic channels are not functioning properly,” he said. “Had our parliament played its necessary role in deals between the state and private companies, it would have ensured that the people’s interests were represented every time.”
Mr Borai concluded that there most likely won’t be an immediate effect from Saturday’s ruling, but that he hoped it would highlight the dire need for more democratic representation for Egyptians.
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Date started: January 2017, app launched November 2017
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Private/Retail/Leisure
Number of Employees: 18 employees, including full-time and flexible workers
Funding stage and size: Seed round completed Q4 2019 - $1m raised
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The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
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Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
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