61. Challenging the Legal Ideology of the State: Cause Lawyering and Social Movements in Egypt
- Author:
- Ahmed Ezzat
- Publication Date:
- 05-2019
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Arab Reform Initiative (ARI)
- Abstract:
- Egyptian cause lawyers have constituted a strong socio-professional group and successfully used “strategic litigation” to challenge the state’s policies and counter its conservative narratives. With President El-Sissi in power and the security grip over legal institutions and courts, doubts were raised as to whether it still makes sense to go to court against the state over matters of rights and freedoms. By reviewing several emblematic cases, the author analyzes the impact of cause lawyering on mobilization and social movements and how it contributed to reshaping the public sphere, as well as the challenges the cause lawyers’ movement faces under El-Sissi.
- Topic:
- Human Rights, United Nations, Social Movement, and Legal Theory
- Political Geography:
- Africa, North Africa, Egypt, and Mediterranean