Challenges of Transitional Justice vs Authoritarianism in the post Mubarak Era

The traditional principles of international law such as the principles of state sovereignty and the state officials’ immunity, have become considerably weaker norms. The dimension of moral sovereignty of governments, by contrast, has gained much traction. concepts such as responsibility for protection and transitional justice means that internal developments in countries and violations of human rights by governments will lead to domestic and international reactions. These conflicting trajectories have come to a head during and in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab uprisings. The rulers of the North African countries, including Egypt, who committed human rights violations in their various forms during their rule, were prosecuted after being overthrown. However, transitional justice in Egypt was implemented in an incomplete way and without any enforcement of justice. The key question of this article is why the transitional justice in Egypt has not led to the enforcement of justice against former officials? The main hypothesis of this paper is that the exclusion of the political interests of the new rulers of Egypt, including the military council, the brotherhood government and the interim government under the protection of the military, as well as the continuation of the presence of the military in the structure of power, have led to the imperfect implementation of the mechanisms of transitional justice of the authorities of the former regime in Egypt. This article, based on the descriptive-analytical method and using authoritative documentary and archival data, attempts to examine the challenges of transitional justice in post-Bahamian Egypt.