On October 3, 2024, during the opening session of the second legislative term of the House of Representatives, the Egyptian Cabinet requested withdrawal of 17 bills, most notably a proposed code of personal status that would revise Egypt’s personal status laws regulating marriage, divorce, child custody, and related matters.
Background
Egyptian law governing personal status is currently spread among several procedural and substantive laws. For example, Law No. 100 of 1985 amending Law No. 25 of 1929 on Personal Status in Egypt only regulates family matters of Muslims. There have been efforts to establish a unified personal status code, and this is the second time in recent years that the Cabinet has withdrawn a bill to establish such a code.
In February 2021, the Cabinet submitted a bill to establish a code of personal status to the parliament. According to a report issued by the Carnegie Endowment, the proposed bill faced immense criticism because it was considered “a peeling back of progress on women’s rights.” The Cabinet withdrew the bill from parliament, reportedly because of the criticism it received.
On March 21, 2023, the Egyptian Ministry of Justice announced that it has finished working on a second modified bill. The second bill was submitted to the House of Representatives for discussion in September 2023. However, as noted above, the second bill was withdrawn by the Cabinet in October 2024.
Reasons for Bill’s Withdrawal
According to Ihab Ramzy, a Christian member of the Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives, the current bill on personal status was withdrawn because the draft law included many articles that were viewed as not compatible with the current social changes in Egypt, and withdrawal was necessary to enable a new version to be drafted that will help resolve matters of family law for both Christians and Muslims in Egypt.
Ramzy said that the current laws on personal status play a key role in the lives of Egyptians and have a direct impact on the stability of the Egyptian family, but that they fail to address many family problems, especially those related to divorce, custody, and alimony.
Another member of the Legislative and Constitutional Committee and the head of the parliamentary bloc of the Tagamu’a Party, Atef El-Maghawry, confirmed that the bill on the personal status code, had been suspended due to objections issued by various entities, including the Al-Azhar Islamic religious institution, the largest religious organization in Egypt. El-Maghawry said one of the main issues that raised concerns among members of the House was article 36 of the draft bill, which addresses divorce.
According to Ramzy, the bill requires that divorce between a husband and wife must be registered in writing for the divorce to be effective and invalidates divorces that take place verbally. Additionally, the bill grants the wife, upon divorce, a share of her husband’s money earned during the marriage. President Sisi envisions the bill as a modern legislative framework for regulating divorce and other aspects of family law.
The Al Azhar Islamic institution objects to the proposed provision on divorce, arguing that Islamic law allows for verbal divorce between a husband and wife, and does not mandate a written divorce.
Relatedly, the Grand Mufti of the Republic, Shawqi Allam, has noted that the Dar Al-Iftaa, the official Islamic institution responsible to issue religious decrees in Egypt, issued 300,000 fatwas on divorce over the past 5 years. Out of these 300,000 fatwas, only two called for documenting the divorce in writing.
George Sadek, Law Library of Congress
December 11, 2024
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