Mohammad, Ahmad Morsi’s eldest son, is a young man in his mid-forties. He says, “I was young at the time, but after reviewing my father’s papers, I found that the rent of Nasser Social Bank did not exceed 310 pounds.”
The first one is the Holding Company for Cotton Mills affiliated with the Ministry of the Public Business Sector for a monthly

Mohammad Morsi reiterates, “While the Kafr El-Sheikh Court of First Instance was considering the case in 2001, Nasser Bank requested to have it rejected, based on the text of Article (18) of Law (136) of 1981. This law legalizes and supports the tenant’s position of refusing eviction. It also allows the possibility of extending the tenancy indefinitely.”

Morsi was forced to file another lawsuit before the Supreme Constitutional Court, in which he demanded to nullify Article (18).

A member of the Egyptian Association for Economics, Statistics and Legislation, Dr. Walid Jaballah, chronicles the stages that rental regulations went through in the country as follows: “Article (18) is a product of the socialist era of various ruling regimes or systems.”

In the opening notes of the proposal paper we have obtained to amend law No (136) Jaballah explains that the original regulation of the rental relationship is based on Civil Law No. (131) of 1948. When the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser approved the 1956 constitution, amendments were made as per Article (7) calling for social justice to be the guiding principle in regulating the national economy.

After achieving the ‘Arab unity’ between Egypt and Syria in 1958, the provisional constitution still stipulated this article, which was the cornerstone of the state’s intervention in the distribution of goods and services. According to Dr Jaballah, member of the Egyptian Society for Political Economy, Statistics and Legislation, this distribution system was especially embraced by Nasser’s government which adopted socialist systems with the issuance of the 1961 laws.

Jaballah points out that the 1971 constitution adopted a system that combined socialism and capitalism. Accordingly, Laws No. (49) of 1977 and (136) of 1981 were issued. These represent the beginning of laws on (economic) openness (known as the era of Infitah), approved by the late President Anwar El-Sadat.

Then, everything related to socialism was deleted in the 1971 constitution of which Article (4) stipulated the freedom of economic activity. This is also included in the 2014 constitution, according to a member of the Legislative Assembly who adds, “Despite this, the state did not intervene to restore the balance between the lessor and the lessee. It is necessary then that the legislature intervene to rectify this flaw.”

Mohammad Morsi clarifies that he cannot estimate the amount of money spent on the case of evicting Nasser Bank. He adds, “What I can say is that it went from one court to another and from one department to the next without success for years.”
He adds, “I traveled to Saudi Arabia and worked there for years. Then, I came back, but I still didn’t know how to claim my right.” He explains that this prompted him to rent a shop for his own business activities on the same street where the bank was renting his own property. However, “Unlike the bank’s rent; this was costing me thousands of Egyptian pounds.”
The five-year deadline set by the Egyptian government to vacate the units it rents from citizens expired in 2002 as per the 1997 order by El-Ganzouri government. This is in addition to the expiration of the old rental laws and the adoption of the Egyptian Civil Code that governs rental relations.

A leaked document banned from circulation reveals a draft law proposed in 2007 to regulate rental relations. This demanded the termination of the old rental laws because of the injustice towards real estate owners. This draft law was proposed by the Economic Policies Committee of the National Democratic Party which was dissolved by a judicial order.

In the copy we obtained, the committee demanded that the provisions of the Egyptian Civil Code be applied to all leased places, rented by the government or by common people.

This is in addition to the application of the provisions of the proposed law to the leased premises governed by Laws No. (49) of 1977 and (136) of 1981. It also proposes granting the leasing parties a grace period of five years to redress the situation, but this proposal was born dead.

Ahmad Morsi died in 2015, and his family’s case stayed pending in courts. In February 2018, the family lawyer, Mohammad Badawi, requested that the lawsuit be rectified and that the family members replace their late father as heirs.

After 18 years of pleading in courts, the Constitutional Court ruled in May 2018 to expel the government. This came after a ruling that the first paragraph of Article (18) of Law (136) of 1981 was unconstitutional, as it stated that the landlord may not request that the place be vacated even if the period agreed upon in the contract expired. The ruling also included contracts leasing properties to persons who use the properties for purposes other than housing.

The court also specified the implementation of its ruling and its enforcement in its text: This was set to be on the day following the end of the annual regular legislative session of the Lower House of Representatives, which ended in July of 2018.

Yasser Zabadi, a Cassation and Supreme Constitutional Court lawyer says by way of interpretation of the ruling that the state or the government is a “legal entity” and does not die; therefore, leases with the government entail an “eternal and unending commitment” unlike leases to common people. Leases to common people end either with the death of the tenant or whoever the contract is extended to.

In the wake of this ruling, which was described as “historic,” lawsuits demanding the expulsion of the government from (long term) rented properties increased. In this investigation, we documented five of these, in which the Egyptian judiciary ruled to terminate leases with the government.

The first ruling was issued in 2021 by the South Cairo Court of First Instance in Case No. (850). This terminated the lease contracts signed by the ‘Kaha’ Preserved Food Company of the Ministry of the Public Business Sector in 1962 and in 1963 with citizen Ahmad Ra’afat Abdel-Azim.

At the end of 2020, a ruling was issued in the Supreme Constitutional Court Case No. (126) which granted Abdel-Wahab Al-Muddathir the right to recover a property he has been renting to the Alexandria Security Directorate since 1961.

In June 2020, the South Cairo Court ruled to terminate a lease signed by the Omar Effendi Company of the Ministry of the Public Business Sector in 1940 with the family of Mohammad El-Sayed Gharib. The ruling favored the return of the property to the family, according to the text of Case No. (707).

In early 2020, the Court of Cassation ruled in lawsuit No. (13626) to vacate the property that has been rented by Egypt Post in the city of Mahmoudeya in El-Beheira Governorate since 1963. It ruled in favor of returning it to the owner Mohammad Abdel-Mohsen Khatir.

The South Cairo Court of First Instance decided in lawsuit No. (821) of 2019 to vacate the properties of Hano, Banzayon and the Green Salon in central Cairo. These companies were affiliated with the high-end fashion houses company of the Ministry of the Public Business Sector. The ruling favored the return of the property to its owner Ali Al-Qaisi.

Mohammad Morsi explains to the investigator, “Our lawyer had passed away, and two years had passed since the issuance of the Supreme Constitutional Court ruling. Nasser Bank was still procrastinating in vacating the first and ground floors of the property.” He added that the authorities entrusted with the implementation of the judicial rulings did not cooperate with him at all on the issue.
Cassation and constitutional law expert Yasser Zabadi confirms this and says, “The government resorts to procrastination and delays in implementing the final judicial rulings by prolonging the lawsuits or otherwise.” He believes that this may lead citizens to losing confidence in the government.

The investigator monitored not only the Egyptian government’s procrastination but also its use of the Public Interest or Benefit Law No. (10) of 1990 in its favor by designating the status of “public interest or benefit,” (of a property) especially to hold on to schools it rents from citizens. Since the ruling of unconstitutionality was issued in 2018, the investigating reporter counted 32 government such decisions published in the Official Gazette that grant rented schools the status of “public interest or benefit.”

The new law calls upon the state to pay compensation for the property owner according to market value at the time of the expropriation decision with an added 20% of the estimated value and the government entity should pay the entire amount within one month.

Zabadi explains that the Egyptian government submitted a draft law concerning legal entities only because the Constitutional Court committed them to do so. This included granting the government a 5-year grace period to move. During this time, the rent would increase fivefold besides an annual increase of 15%.

But this government draft law included a constitutional flaw since it privileges legal persons or entities over the common persons. But a copy of a decree/Fatwa issued by the Egyptian State Council that we have obtained removed this advantage ensuring that the lease is to supersede legal entity or common person in those cases.

According to the head of the Housing Committee in the Egyptian House of Representatives, Saad Hammoudeh, there is no official draft law submitted by the government or the legislative committee in the Egyptian parliament to amend rent laws even as we speak.

The spokesman for the Egyptian council of ministers, Hani Younes, refused to answer our queries, whether by phone or through WhatsApp.