Egypt suspends court trials for 2 weeks due to coronavirus

CAIRO - 15 March 2020: Egypt’s judicial institutions suspended court trials for two weeks nationwide due to the outbreak of coronavirus (Covid 2019), according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Justice on Sunday.

"The Court of Cassation, the Supreme Judicial Council, the State Council, and the General Prosecution decided to postponeall lawsuits for two weeks, starting from Monday, March 16, 2020," the statement read.

"Administrative works at the judicial institutions will not be suspended," the statement continued.

On March 9, 2020, Egyptian Attorney General Hamada al-Sawy suspended the fingerprint biometric attendance system for judges and public servants in the prosecution offices all over the country until further notice, as a preventive measure against the virus.

As per the decision, only investigators, accused people, lawyers and witnesses should be present during the investigations, while relatives are not allowed to attend at the prosecution offices. Face masks should be worn by employees when they deal with foreigners, according to the decision.

To prevent the spread of coronavirus, President Abdel Fatah al-Sisi decreed the suspension of schools and universities for two weeks as of Sunday, March 15.

Egyptian Minister of Health Hala Zayed announced Saturday a new case of coronavirus, to have the tally of patients in Egypt rising to 110. She added that four coronavirus cases left quarantine, after they tested negative for the disease, bringing the total number of cured people to 32.

Coronavirus has forced many countries to suspend their flights around the globe after the infected cases reached 157,483 people and 5,845 deaths were reported to date. On March 10, 2020, the virus was announced a global pandemic by the World Health Organization.

“WHO is deeply concerned by the alarming levels of the coronavirus spread, severity & inaction, & expects to see the number of cases, deaths & affected countries climb even higher. Therefore, we made the assessment that COVID19 can be characterized as a pandemic,” said WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesusin in a press conference.