The Algerian Parliament Has Voted: State Terrorism Is Now Legal

On Monday, May 12, 2025, the National People’s Assembly voted by majority in favor of the new Code of Criminal Procedure, despite repeated warnings from lawyers, human rights defenders, and civil society organizations. The text, presented as a “modernization” by Minister of Justice Boujemaa Lotfi, in reality marks a brutal break from fundamental judicial safeguards.

Although the draft law includes over 850 articles, it was virtually absent from national media coverage. Yet its effects are immediate: it legalizes a series of repressive measures under the guise of judicial efficiency.

Here’s what the adopted law now allows:

• Spying on your calls and entering your home without consent
  Article 100 authorizes prosecutors to intercept your communications and install microphones and cameras in private spaces, without a judge’s warrant.
• Freezing your bank accounts without a court ruling
  Article 49 bis 1 allows your accounts to be frozen on mere suspicion of an economic offense.
• Publicly defaming citizens who haven’t been convicted
  Article 19 authorizes the publication of your name and photo even before any verdict.
• Holding you for 10 days without charge or a lawyer
  Article 78 extends police custody to 10 days for accusations as vague as “State security.”
• Giving full police powers to military intelligence
  Articles 23 and 24 grant military intelligence services the same legal authority as civilian judicial police, nationwide.
• Eliminating citizen juries in major trials
  Article 381 removes lay jurors from terrorism or trafficking trials, leaving judgment entirely in the hands of state-appointed magistrates.
• Banning judicial transparency
  Article 19 gives exclusive control over case disclosure to the prosecutor, even to block access from the family or defense lawyer.
• Excluding defense lawyers from trials
  Article 128/2 and related provisions allow for lawyers to be sidelined at key moments of the procedure.
• Arresting citizens for simple online criticism
  The combination of digital surveillance and vague “public order” laws enables the arrest of citizens for a post, a meme, or an opinion.

Despite 87 proposed amendments, only 23 were accepted. The majority passed the text without genuine public debate, while Hichem Sifer, president of the Legal Affairs Committee, normally omnipresent on state media, remained entirely silent about this explosive reform. A silence that reveals a clear intent to suppress national debate.

The minister, for his part, praised the law as one that “guarantees balance between fighting crime and protecting rights,” claiming that some professional recommendations had been included. However, the National Union of Bar Associations (UNOA), which represents over 60,000 lawyers, categorically rejects the law.
“This law institutionalizes fear. It gives the state legal cover to spy, seize, smear, and imprison anyone, without real defense.”

On May 13, 2025, the United Nations, through its spokesperson for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Thameen Al-Kheetan has already expressed serious concern over a very similar bill passed in Egypt, which also granted prosecutors broad powers over preventive detention, communication interception, and limiting access to legal representation. Unlike Egypt, Algeria adopted its version of the law almost silently, without attracting international attention.

We are therefore making available a copy of the law as it was submitted for adoption, for UN representatives to examine. Within it, they will find, among other things:

• Article 100, which legalizes spying on citizens;
• Articles 23 and 24, which assign judicial powers to military authorities;
• Article 19, which authorizes pretrial defamation and full secrecy over investigations;
• Article 49 bis 1, which enables asset seizure without court ruling;
• Article 78, which allows arbitrary detention for up to 10 days;
• Article 381, which eliminates citizen juries in political trials;
• Article 128/2, which downgrades the role of lawyers to symbolic formalities.

Link to the Preliminary Report on the draft Code of Criminal Procedure: Click here
Link to the letter from the National Union of Bar Associations (UNOA): Click here

Abderrahmane Fares ✍️