What is it about?
Full translation of the first court case where the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt decided that the principles of Islamic law had to prevail over a piece of national legislation. The translation is annotated with information on the Court's previous case law, the context of the quashed provision, and the ruling's notabilia.
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Why is it important?
After over 30 years of siding with the legislator, the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt in the annotated and translated ruling decided for the first time to hold a provision in breach of the constitutional provision declaring the principles of Islamic law the chief source of legislation.
Perspectives
I have used this ruling in class for many years to illustrate how a Court can try and strike a balance between sharia and national legislation. Scholarship until now ignored by and large that the Court took this position, assuming that it kept siding with the legislator as it had done for the previous three decades. This is the first of (until the time of writing) three decisions declaring a piece of legislation unconstitutional for breach of the sharia provision; the second and third rulings will be translated and annotated in future issues of ALQ.
Professor Gianluca Parolin
Aga Khan University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A First Violation of the Sharia Provision: Egypt’s SCC’s Ruling of 15 January 2006, in the Case No. 113/xxvi (Annotated and Translated), Arab Law Quarterly, June 2023, Brill,
DOI: 10.1163/15730255-bja10141.
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