In the context of the social debate around the seriousness of the trials of the former regime’s figures, the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies is to host a seminar to discuss transitional justice mechanisms as a gateway to hold these figures accountable for their crimes against the Egyptian people. The seminar will be held on account of the visit of the International Centre for Transitional Justice to evaluate the process of criminal justice and the trials of crimes and violations against human rights in the past.
This discussion is especially important due to the approaching trial of the former president Hosni Mubarak, as we must determine whether we are on the right path to condemning him for the violations he committed over 30 years. The matter is increasingly critical in light of the release of some of the former regime’s police officers and prominent ministers who were condemned of killing protestors.
This discussion aims to clarify whether Egypt needs at this time to apply exceptional laws like treachery law in order to try figures of the former regime, or whether it should follow the lead of other countries which passed through similar situations by creating a special judicial mechanism which would collect evidence, receive complaints, and conduct investigations according to the principles of Egyptian criminal law and international law. Such a mechanism would also impose appropriate sentences on the offenders who committed these crimes.
The seminar invites Zaghlol Al-Balshy, vice president of the Cassation Court; Marieke Wierda, the director of the International Centre for Transitional Justice, the legal officer of the International Criminal Court of Yugoslavia, and author of a book about collecting evidence in international criminal law; and Nicklos Komjian, international lawyer in the field of local and international criminal trials for human rights crimes. Komjian is currently serving as a general prosecutor at the Human Rights Court in Cambodia, which was established after a treaty between the Cambodian government and the United Nations in 2005 and 2006.
The seminar will be held at 6 p.m. on Thursday, the 28th of July in “Dr. Mohamed Sayed Said” hall at the CIHRS office: 21 Abd El Megid El Remaly Street (Fahmy) – Bab El Louq – Next to the Egyptian Chamber of Commerce – 7th Floor – Cairo.
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