Egyptian Civil Code

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The Egyptian Civil Code is the prime source of civil law for the Arab Republic of Egypt.

The first version of Egyptian Civil Code was written in 1949. The prime author of the 1949 code was Abdel-Razzak Al-Sanhuri, who received assistance from Dean Edouard Lambert of the University of Lille. Perhaps due to Lambert's influence, the 1949 code followed the French civil law model. The code focus on the regulation of business and commerce, and does not include any provisions regarding family law.

The code also provides for Islamic law to have a role in its enforcement and interpretation. Article 1 of the code provides that, “in the absence of any applicable legislation, the judge shall decide according to the custom and failing the custom, according to the principles of Islamic Law. In the absence of these principles, the judge shall have recourse to natural law and the rules of equity.” Despite this invocation of Islamic law, one commentator has argued that 1949 code reflected a "hodgepodge of socialist doctrine and sociological jurisprudence."^[1]

The Egyptian Civil Code has been the source of law and inspiration for numerous other Middle Eastern jurisdictions, including pre-dictatorship Libya and Iraq as well as Qatar.