The Egyptian Constitution and Transgender Rights: Judicial Interpretation of Islamic Norms

Abstract

The lack of legislations regulate legal issues of transgenderism, transsexuality and sex reassignment surgery (SRS) in Egypt, lead to the raise of many questions regarding the legality of conducting the SRS and its consequences, this paper aims to highlight the SRS legal issues occurred in Egypt and determine the approach taken by the Judicial authorities in dealing with this matter and provides a critical analysis of the related rulings issued by the Egyptian courts, given that Egypt as an Islamic country and the Islamic principles of sharia is the main source of legislation so this paper provides a comparative study of the views of Muslim jurists ( Islamic fatwas) on the Transsexualism matters. While previous studies have discussed legal cases and Islamic legal opinions (fatwas) related to transsexualism. For example, J. Skovgaard-Petersen has analyzed Tantawy’s and Khumani’s fatwas, and Serena Tolino has discussed other Islamic fatwas, In this paper, the 2016 “Noraan” case is discussed, where I critically analyze the ruling in the case and explain both the relation between the Egyptian Constitution and the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) and the impact of Islamic norms interpretation on transsexuals and human rights. Among the findings, that Muslim jurists have different opinions about SRS, so there is no consensus in favor or against transgender surgery, human dignity and the preservation of life and family (hifdhu al-nafs wa al-nasl) are Islamic norms in favor of permitting the SRS, the Egyptian supreme constitutional court has respected Human Rights and International law by its ruling on explaining Islamic principles as the undebatable issues, and the courts might deal with SRS in means of the correction of material mistake.