The decision by President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi of Egypt not to sign a flawed Criminal Procedure Code and to send it back to parliament for revision was a positive move, 20 civil society organizations including Human Rights Watch said today. Parliament should completely revise the draft law to eliminate a series of provisions that raised human rights concerns. In August 2024, Egypt’s House of Representatives began discussing a draft Criminal Procedure Code that, if enacted into law, would have set the country’s criminal justice system back decades. Though some minor changes were made to the text before it was ultimately approved and voted on by the House in April 2025, core human rights concerns within the law remained. We ask that a wide-ranging consultation process that brings in a diverse group of Egyptian legal, judicial, and human rights practitioners and experts be held to meaningfully inform the process.