event
Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy
Monday
27
May
Prof.Amr Shalakany.jpg

ON JUDGES AND REVOLUTIONS IN POSTCOLONIAL EGYPT

AMR SHALAKANY, Associate Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Law & Society Research Unit at the American University in Cairo (AUC)
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Auditorium Ivan Pictet B, Maison de la paix, Geneva

This talk is part of the Albert Hirschman Centre's lecture series on “Dismantling the Rule of Law?

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Judges by and large stood at the sidelines during Egypt’s "18 Days" of mass protests in Jan-Feb 2011.  The very few who made it to Tahrir Square, however, were commonly recognized with a staple chant coined in democracy protests years earlier: Ya qudāh ya qudāh!  Khalaṣūnā min al-tughāh!  This call that “Judges hear us judges! Save us from the tyrants!” confirmed the overwhelming assessment of Egypt’s judiciary in pre-Arab Spring scholarship as the most professional and rule of law affirming among its neighbors—a sure anomaly among postcolonial authoritarian states.  Such is the case no more.  If many a Tahrir slogan seems fanciful today, none is more so than past calls for judges as revolutionary allies.  A veritable judicialization of politics unfolded—and to disappointing results. As revolutionary demands for retribution went to court and lost over and again, the big question remains: Did the revolution fail because the rule of law was misapplied by puppets on the bench, or was strict adherence to the principles of liberal legality itself responsible for the counter-revolutionary success we see today?


Amr Shalakany is Associate Professor of Law and Founding Director of the Law & Society Research Unit at the American University in Cairo (AUC). He teaches comparative law, Islamic law, legal history, media/art law, as well as contracts and torts at Cairo University Faculty of Law, and held visiting positions at L'École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Perugia University Law School, the London School of Economics, Brown University, and Harvard Law School.  Shalakany started his teaching career at Birzeit University, also serving as legal advisor to the PLO Negotiations Support Unit in Ramallah. He is admitted to the New York Bar.

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