Egypt Penal Code Information
The Egyptian Penal Code, enacted as Law No. 58 of 1937, is the foundational text of substantive criminal law in Egypt. It replaced earlier nineteenth-century penal legislation and remains in force today, though it has been amended many times to address terrorism financing, cybercrime, money laundering, sexual harassment, and other offences that did not exist when the original code was drafted. The code is organised around general principles of criminal liability followed by specific offences grouped by the interest they protect.
The substantive offences are arranged by category: crimes against the security of the state, crimes against public administration, crimes against the administration of justice, crimes against public order, crimes against persons, and crimes against property. The code defines elements of each offence and prescribes penalties ranging from fines and short detention to long-term imprisonment, life imprisonment with hard labour, and capital punishment for the gravest crimes. Procedural matters are governed by separate legislation. Browse related Egyptian legislation on Egypt laws in English.
Readers often arrive looking for particular provisions. The classification of offences opens the code: Article 10 defines felonies by the penalties attached to them, and the articles that follow define misdemeanours and contraventions. False reporting to the authorities is dealt with in Article 305, within the chapter on defamation and insult. One point of terminology: the 1937 text speaks of penal servitude, or hard labour. Law No. 95 of 2003 abolished hard labour as a penalty and substituted aggravated imprisonment for it, so a translation of the original wording should be read with that substitution in mind.
How current is a translation of a code from 1937?
The 1937 code remains in force, heavily amended — terrorism, cybercrime-adjacent offences and harassment provisions have been added over the decades. The structure and general principles are original; always check whether a specific article you rely on has been amended since the translation date.
Does Egyptian criminal law exist outside the Penal Code?
Substantially. Weapons, drugs, money laundering, press and telecommunications offences sit in special statutes. The code supplies the general principles of liability that those statutes borrow.