This week President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi amended Law No. 396/1956 regulating prisons, replacing old articles and adding new ones, but lawyers say oversight is more important than changing laws and creating new rules.
An additon to the prison law, passed by presidential decree on Sunday, allows the "use of force" against prisoners in cases where wardens need to defend themselves, to foil an attempted prison break, in the case of "physical resistance" or if prisoners fail to adhere to orders stipulated in the law and prison regulations.
"This article is dangerous," Fatma Serag, the head of the legal unit at the Association for Freedom of Thought and Expression (AFTE), told Aswat Masriya. "It allows the use of force, without any criteria ... if a prisoner tries to escape, they can kill him."
Serag believes this article needs to provide specific definitions of situations in which this "use of force" can be used, as well as details on the appropriate "response" by prison authorities.
Similarly, lawyer Fadi Wagdi from the Front to Defend Egyptian Protestors told Aswat Masriya that as it stands, this article is too broad.
If there will be an article to regulate situations like this, then there must be definitions of the situations and of how to respond to them, Wagdi said.
The newly amended law also extends the maximum period of solitary confinement handed down at the sole discretion of prison wardens, from one week to 15 days.
These are not cases where prisoners have violated prison rules, and according to Ali Atef from the Arab Network for Human Rights Information, this amendment grants more powers to prison wardens. He believes it can be abused to target certain prisoners and fears that it will be specifically used against political prisoners.
Both Atef and Serag said they reject the use of solitary confinement altogether. Serag said rights advocates have for long been demanding its cancellation because it has a "very negative impact" on prisoners.
Prisoners may be subjected to longer periods of solitary confinement of up to a month, if they violate internal prison regulations. This stipulation, which already existed in the law, is an improvement on previous versions of the law which once allowed lashing.
The role of prisons as regulated by this law should be disciplinary to a great extent, the lawyers said.
However, some of the amendments are positive, Atef explained, such as allowing prisoners to call their families for a fee and allowing detainees in preventative detention to stay in furnished rooms, also for a fee.
But the implementation itself is more important than coming up with laws and rules, the lawyers agreed.
Serag says the amendments to the law are "merely ink on paper," adding that oversight is more important. The National Council for Human Rights (NCHR), prosecutors and civil society organisations should have the right to make random inspections of prisons without having to request a permit that may or may not be granted.
As it is, the NCHR can visit prisons but only after receiving approval from the state's highest prosecutor.
Another challenge to implementing the amendments, according to Wagdi, is that some of the issues stipulated in the law may contradict internal prison regulations, which vary from one prison to another.
The legislature, currently being elected, will have to review this amendment within 15 days of convening the House of Representatives, as is the case with all other legislation issued by presidential decree in the absence of parliament.
Conditions inside Egyptian prisons have come under heavy scrutiny this year especially following the death in custody of several prisoners.
Although deaths in custody are not well-documented since little access is granted to human rights defenders and journalists, based on different reports by rights associations, several dozen have died in Egyptian prisons this year.
The NCHR said in a report in May that at least 80 detainees died in custody in prisons and police stations between June 2013 and December 2014.
In June 2015, Human Rights Watch cited a higher number. The rights watchdog said in a report that at least 124 deaths in custody have been documented by Egyptian human rights organisations since August 2013, citing "medical negligence, torture, or ill-treatment."
