Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt, 2014, Article 57 (Inviolability of private life and confidentiality of communications)

Article 57 of the 2014 Constitution of the Arab Republic of Egypt is unusually explicit about digital communications and is therefore a strong candidate for inclusion as a Digital Rights instrument. It provides that 'private life is inviolable, safeguarded and may not be infringed upon', and then expressly extends inviolability and guaranteed confidentiality to 'telegraph, postal and electronic correspondence, telephone calls, and other forms of communication'. The Constitution was approved by referendum and came into force in January 2014 (with amendments in 2019). The provision satisfies the inclusion test's second limb directly: it contains specific language addressing the privacy of communications, including the digitally explicit reference to 'electronic correspondence'. The Article sets a comparatively demanding standard for state interference: communications may only be confiscated, examined or monitored by a reasoned (causal) judicial order, for a limited period of time, and in the cases specified by law. On its face this is a judicial-authorisation-plus-time-limit safeguard stronger than the prosecutorial or executive models found in some other jurisdictions. Article 57 also contains a distinctive second element directly relevant to internet shutdowns: it obliges the State to protect citizens' right to use public means of communication, which 'may not be arbitrarily suspended, disconnected or deprived of from citizens'. This provides an express constitutional hook against network disruptions and communications shutdowns. The practical significance of Article 57 must, however, be read honestly against Egypt's statutory and operational reality. The Anti-Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law No. 175 of 2018 authorises website blocking on national-security and economic grounds and imposes data-retention and surveillance obligations, and Law No. 180 of 2018 empowers the Supreme Council for Media Regulation to block accounts and websites, measures that human-rights observers argue sit in tension with the constitutional guarantees. The gap between the text of Article 57 and surveillance and blocking practice is a recurring theme in analyses of digital rights in Egypt. The provision is included here not to suggest that strong protection is realised in practice, but because its text is specifically and digitally framed and because it functions as the constitutional benchmark above Egypt's cybercrime, media-regulation and data-protection statutes, including the Personal Data Protection Law No. 151 of 2020, against which those instruments and the State's surveillance and shutdown practices fall to be measured.

1. 1Article 57: 'Private life is inviolable, safeguarded and may not be infringed upon.'
2. 2Provides that telegraph, postal and electronic correspondence, telephone calls and other forms of communication are inviolable and their confidentiality guaranteed.
3. 3Permits their confiscation, examination or monitoring only by a reasoned (causal) judicial order, for a limited period and in cases specified by law, an express judicial-authorisation and time-limit standard.
4. 4Obliges the State to protect citizens' right to use public means of communication, which may not be arbitrarily suspended, disconnected or deprived (a constitutional hook against internet/communications shutdowns).
5. 5Serves as the constitutional benchmark against which surveillance, website-blocking, data-retention and shutdown measures, including under Law No. 175 of 2018 and Law No. 180 of 2018, are to be assessed.