In foreign countries, a ruler is accountable and could be jailed if a train derailed in some distant suburb and passengers were killed. For over there, a ruler is truly responsible for the people.
We don’t have this here because we believe rulers are infallible. We only punish small-time thieves who steal chickens or laundry. Mention one ruler who has been brought to trial for committing political or criminal offenses. Mubarak got away with 30 years of crimes. And Morsy and his Brotherhood gang will also get away, acquitted of their charges.
We desperately need a law that brings to trial rulers who make mistakes or betray the trust of the people, not before misdemeanor courts, but before political courts that assess their general performance and to what extent they were dedicated to the country.
Take for example Mohamed Morsy, who was responsible for the political chaos and for dragging the country into the Muslim Brotherhood tunnel of opportunism. He did more crimes in one year than Mubarak did in 30.
Or take Mubarak, who was responsible for the political stagnation and social impoverishment, not to mention the deterioration in education and public health or the squandering of the public sector.
In my opinion, we lack a sense of revolution because we do not prosecute rulers or ministers and officials. We only have talk-show trials just to sell commercials and please viewers before the late night movie.
We are not like Tunisia, which was strict with the icons of the former regime and prosecuted them before revolutionary courts. Actually, not only the icons were brought to trial, but also their followers and defenders were brought before military courts. They were tried in closed rooms and not televised. By the way, there is no other country in the world that broadcasts trials live on air as we do here.
I am saying that Tunisia held serious trials before special tribunals and sentenced to prison those who were proven guilty. And in Tunisia, prisoners do hard labor and are placed in two-meter square cells.
The brother of Leila Trabelsi, the wife of Ben Ali, is being treated like a bandit. He offered a lot of money for his release that his sister would have paid, but his offer was rejected because, in Tunisia, offenders are punished.
Also, the government did not negotiate with him to return some of his fortune as happens in another country that we know and live in.
Mubarak was prosecuted for trivial charges like buying a villa for peanuts. Even in his trial for his responsibility in the alleged killing of demonstrators, his lawyer managed to turn him into a victim and not a culprit.
The same is happening with Morsy. If he is asked in court whether or not he gave orders to kill demonstrators, his lawyer would request the court to clarify if those orders were verbal or in writing. If the answer was that they were verbal, he would contend that verbal orders do not count. And if the answer was that they were in writing, he would ask if they were stamped with the official state symbol. And if they were not stamped, the lawyer would demand his acquittal or request to change the panel.
Gentlemen, we should hold a political trial for Morsy’s actions during the year he was in office. He should be arraigned for his “brotherhoodization” of the state, his blasting of the constitution and his dismissal of the public prosecutor. These crimes should execute him more than once had we been trying him politically.
A ruler is responsible for everything that is happening in the country because nothing happens without his permission and orders. A corrupt ruler should be prosecuted for his general deeds and not for the nitty-gritty details because this gives a chance for lawyers to evade the case.
I believe this is the responsibility of the minister of transitional justice, whom I do respect very much, yet do not know what he does exactly.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
