‘I Heard it All Before’: Egyptian tales of law and development

ABSTRACT This article provides a brutally condensed history of the Egyptian legal elite, tracing their rise to power following the introduction of legal reforms in the late 19th century, their fall in the 1950s, and the possibility of a renewed elite status based on ‘rule of law’ reforms introduced since the 1990s. I argue that ‘rule of law’ reforms had a considerable effect in raising the profile of Egyptian legal practitioners and empowering them as instrumental decision makers on multiple questions of public concern. In particular, I argue that the history of the Egyptian legal elite makes it very difficult to either embrace the rule of law as a panacea or dismiss it out of hand as a colonial ploy.