Contextual Background of Egypt's Constitutions

Egypt has a long and rich history of feminist engagement with constitutionalism dating back almost a century (Badran Reference Badran1995, Women and the Constitution 2013). In the same year that Egypt inaugurated the 1923 constitution, the Egyptian Feminist Union (EFU) was formed by feminist pioneer Huda Sharawi. The EFU lobbied for the reform of the personal status law (governing family matters) and universal suffrage and protection of vulnerable women to be enshrined in the constitution of 1923, though to no avail (Women and the Constitution 2013). Other than article 19, which made primary education mandatory for girls and boys, the constitution was gender blind. In 1956, a new constitution promulgated under Nasser (Sivak-Reid Reference Sivak-Reid2016) assumed a more gender-explicit character; thanks to the mobilization of feminist leaders, universal suffrage was enshrined in the 1956 constitution (Guenena and Wassef Reference Guenena and Wassef1999). Under Nasser's modernization plans, other articles were added that were intended to enable women to accommodate their roles as mothers and workers (Hatem Reference Hatem1994) (Table 1). Two other constitutions were inaugurated during that period; however, they were both transitory in nature. Under President Sadat, Nasser's successor, a new constitution was adopted in 1971 that further enshrined the state's responsibility toward supporting women's productive and reproductive roles (though they remained largely unenforced) (Table 1). It also introduced for the first time the principle of affirmative action for women, though it was later discarded after being deemed unconstitutional. Significantly, in 1980, an important amendment was made to the 1971 constitution that elevated the Shariah from being “a” principle source of legislation to “the” principle source. This amendment reflected a shift toward Islamization on the part of the president, the state ideology, and the resurgence of Islamist movements.

Table 1. Comparison of Egypt's constitutions of 1956, 1971, 2012, and 2014

In 2007, Mubarak (who succeeded President Sadat in 1981) introduced a number of constitutional amendments intended to further consolidate and expand his powers and included an amendment to article 64 of the 1971 constitution to allow for the introduction of quotas (Table 1). Feminists were quick to recognize that the terms of the quota as described in the ensuing electoral legislation were tailored to severely limit the prospects of a nonruling-party candidate winning, and they consequently rejected the legislative measure (quota) as antithetical to women's rights (Tadros Reference Tadros, Tadros and Alcantara2010).

Although a substantive body of scholarship has examined the gender dimensions of Egypt's post-Mubarak transition (e.g., Abouelnaga Reference Abouelnaga, Said, Meari and Pratt2015; Abu-Lughod and El Mahdi Reference Abu-Lughod and Mahdi2011; Al-Ali Reference Al-Ali2014; Hafez Reference Hafez2012; Sholkamy Reference Sholkamy2012; among several others), scholarship focusing on presenting a gendered analysis of the post-Mubarak Egyptian constitutions has been scarce (exceptions include Kamal 2015 and Morsy Reference Morsy2014). Hala Kamal's article is an insightful account of a feminist involved in several collectives seeking to en-gender the constitutional processes leading to the promulgation of the 2014 constitution. Maya Morsy's article (Reference Morsy2014) specifically focuses on women's rights mobilization against the constitution promulgated in 2012.

Context and Political Opportunity Structure

On January 25, 2011, hundreds of protestors rose against Mubarak's almost 30-year rule, and clashes snowballed into a mass revolt. After 18 days of sustained protest, Mubarak was ousted on February 11, 2011. The Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) assumed power, and among the measures announced was the suspension of the 1971 constitution. The process of arriving at a new constitution created a polarization between the Islamists (backed by SCAF) and a wide array of non-Islamist parties of different ideological orientations. The Islamists urged that parliamentary elections be held first so that parliament would determine the representation of the constituent assembly delegated with writing the new constitution. Having built a strong constituency through decades of welfare provision and socio-religious activism, the Islamists were well positioned to win parliamentary elections. The non-Islamist opposition comprising many newly formed parties and youth revolutionary forces and old political parties, all with weak links to constituencies, preferred a constitution be drawn first, through a consensus-building process entailing representation of all political forces in Egypt (Hamzawy Reference Hamzawy2014). In March 2011, a people's referendum on the sequence (constitution or parliament first) was won by the camp that favored parliament first (77%). Islamist political parties, most notably the Muslim Brotherhood, also assumed majority representation in the parliamentary (Majles al Shaab) elections of 2012 (Rabie Reference Rabie2012). However, this was a short-lived parliament. On June 14, 2012, the Supreme Constitutional Court declared parliament null and void on procedural grounds (see Rabie Reference Rabie2012 for details). On June 24, 2012, Mohamed Morsi (the Muslim Brotherhood candidate) was announced the winner of the presidential elections, and on June 30, 2012, he became Egypt's first post-Mubarak president.

In the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution of 2011, feminists coalesced into different coalitions. A coalition of feminist NGOs was composed of 17 civil society organizations with strong feminist identities, including, for example, Nazra for Feminist Studies. The EFU was formed by Arab Solidarity Women Union and involved organizations with strong nationwide developmental outreach. The Revolutionary Women's Coalition was also established, comprised of young revolutionary women activists such as Dina Abouel Sooud. Such formations occurred in a context of a thriving political culture with high participation by a wide array of civil and political actors in Egypt who sought to seize what was perceived then as a political opportunity for shaping a new status quo. This perception of a political opportunity was, to a certain extent, sustained following Morsi's assumption of the presidency in June 2012. The Muslim Brotherhood were under particular pressure to show that they would not pursue “a winner takes all” approach in the selection of the constituent assembly delegated with drawing the constitution, and they assured the public that all shades of the Egyptian social, political, and economic reality would be represented in the process (Kirkpatrick Reference Kirkpatrick2012).

On the other hand, the political opportunity for feminists was greatly challenged by the rise of political Islamist groups and a deeply masculinist military leadership, both of which contributed to a backlash against women's rights, evident in the intensity of the anti-women's rights discourse in the aftermath of the Egyptian revolution (Elsadda Reference Elsadda2012, Tadros Reference Tadros2016). There was a sense of potential threat that the modicum of women's rights would be threatened under the rubric of reversing the legacy of Mubarak given that Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak was reputed to have used her political clout to push for legislative changes on a number of gender matters (Elsadda Reference Elsadda2012).

Coalitional Politics and Repertoires of Bargaining Power

The selection of the 100 members of the constituent assembly in 2012 was informed by the principle of 50% Islamist representation and 50% non-Islamist representation, achieved through consensus. Islamists interviewed believed that a 50% representation was fair given that they had won the previously dissolved parliamentary elections of late 2011–early 2012. Non-Islamists at the time thought that although it was imperfect, there was sufficient good will to make the constitution writing process work. Overall, seven women represented 7% of the total membership of the constituent assembly. Among the seven were four women from the Islamist camp: Hoda Ghaniyya of the Freedom and Justice party; Omayma Kamel, who was also the women's advisor to President Morsi; Amany Abou el Fadl, an Islamist thinker and NGO activist; and Um Ayman, a former MP for the Freedom and Justice (Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated) party. The three other women were Manal el Tibi, a champion of the rights of the Nubian people and a committed human rights activist; Manar el Shorbagy, a political science professor; Shahira Doss, a member of the Right-wing Wafd party and Soad Kamel Rizk, who served as a Dean of the Faculty of Management and Information Systems at the French University in Egypt (and was reported not to be present in most constitutional meetings). Suzie Adly joined the constituent assembly when El Tibi resigned. Substantively, however, only one of these seven women (Manal el Tibi) had a track record of championing women's rights.

In contrast to the modest feminist representation on the constituent assembly, there was substantial feminist mobilization outside the constituent assembly. Several feminist initiatives pursued widescale consultations in urban and rural communities to arrive at a set of demands that would represent their aspirations for Egypt's new constitution (Kamal Reference Kamal2015; Morsy Reference Morsy2014). Among the significant collective actors was the Egyptian Women's Charter led by the Arab Alliance for Women. They had a consultation that involved 3,000 community-based groups across all 27 governorates. The women's charter secured 500,000 votes of support (see Morsy Reference Morsy2014 for details). The other significant feminist initiative was that led by the Coalition of Egyptian Feminist Organizations convened by the Center for Egyptian Women's Legal Aid, the New Women Foundation, Women and Memory Forum, and other feminist organizations. They, too, undertook widespread consultations in rural and urban communities (see Kamal Reference Kamal2015 for details). Such widescale mobilization outside the constituent assembly was motivated by feminists’ sense of a pending threat to women's rights.

Within the constituent assembly, feminists found allies in some non-Islamist left-of-center political parties (e.g., the Egyptian Social Democratic Party) and some youth leaders (e.g., Ahmed Maher of the 6th of April movement). However, other non-Islamist political parties such as the Ghad el Thawra party (a right-of-center political party) assumed a noncommittal stance, whereas all Islamist-leading political figures and parties (e.g., Al Nour party) represented in the constituent assembly took a stance in favor of making a constitutional reference to women's roles and status conditional upon compliance with the Shariah.

Article 68 of the draft constitution 2012 came to symbolize this struggle. It stipulated that “The State is committed to taking all measures to establish equality between women and men in political, cultural, economic and social life and all other fields as long as it does not violate the provisions of the Shariah” (article of the draft the Egyptian constitution of 2012). Amany Abou El Fadl, an Islamist activist, argued that this qualifier was in recognition of the fact that full gender equality is incompatible with Islam in some instances such as inheritance, marriage, and divorce (Abou El Fadl Reference Abou El Fadl2013). The qualifier, she explained, was to prevent future lawsuits being filed on grounds of inequality, for example, if men in cases of polygamy take on other wives. The wording of article 68 of the draft 2012 constitution existed in the previous constitution (Table 1); however, feminists feared that in the light of the new climate, it would be used to justify circumscribing women's rights. This concern emanated from the new political ascendency of Islamists parties and movements and proclamations by MPs that they would like to revoke some of the rights enshrined in family and child legislation due to their incongruence with the Shariah (Morsy Reference Morsy2014)Footnote ⁴. In the end, article 68 was removed in its entirety to mollify the ultra-radical Salafis, who would not allow the passage of the article without the qualifier of compliance with the Shariah, and to assuage the feminists, who were lobbying political parties to vote against its passage.

Political and Ideological Struggles around Gender

A key gain made in the new constitution of 2012, which was commended by the feminists, was the introduction of an article that commits the state to the provision of medical insurance for all households headed by women (Table 1). No less than a quarter of all households in Egypt are headed by women (Morsy Reference Morsy2014); therefore, the proposed constitutional article when applied would benefit large numbers of women. Feminists battled against article 68, which was discarded altogether from the constitution, but they lost the war. In the late hours of the night, when the constitution was being voted on, Islamists succeeded in adding a new clause, article 219 of the constitution of 2013 (Table 1). Article 219 departs from previous constitutions that had allowed the judiciary to define “principles of Shariah” in highly flexible ways. Article 219 narrowed the definition of principles of the Shariah as specifically, “the general evidence, foundational rules, rules of jurisprudence, and credible sources accepted in Sunni doctrines and by the larger community.” In the constituent assembly hearings, feminist lawyers and experts objected that such demarcation would inhibit the potential to advance more progressive interpretations of Shariah, which are not widely prevalent among mainstream Islamic conservative circles.

Feminists also failed to secure the introduction of new constitutional articles on the protection of women against gender-based violence, human trafficking, and establishing the minimum age of marriage at 18 (the latter was enshrined in the child law). Negotiations with Islamist women failed to wield support on these issues; the latter rejected them as either already covered by legislation that is more generic or not requiring inclusion in the constitution (Abou El Fadl Reference Abou El Fadl2013). In protest, Manal El Tibi resigned from the constituent assembly on grounds of its lack of commitment toward women's rights. She expressed frustration that the introduction of a constitutional article committing the Egyptian state to protecting women against all forms of violence was blocked, and she opposed the absence of any articles declaring the state's commitment to equality of all citizens irrespective of their sex. The new constitution also did not have any provisions stipulating the country's commitments to international treaties of which it is a signatory, which would include the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).Footnote ⁵ Islamist-leaning members of the constitution drawing committee opposed this proposal vehemently, arguing that the Egyptian government should not have signed the CEDAW in the first place because some of its articles violate the Shariah (Abou El Fadl Reference Abou El Fadl2013). (Egypt became a signatory to the CEDAW in 1981 but expressed reservations to articles 2, 9, 16 and 29 that it considered incongruent with the Shariah but later withdrew its reservation to article 9 when it granted women the right to pass on their nationality to their children). This stance further confirmed feminists’ suspicions that under the rubric of compliance with Islamic jurisprudence (or the Muslim Brotherhood's interpretation thereof), previously agreed commitments to women's rights were threatened.Footnote ⁶

In December 2012, a people's referendum was held, and 67.8% of the voters (32% turnout) approved the new constitution. A counter coalition to the Islamist coalition emerged, bringing feminists, a number of non-Islamists political parties, and revolutionary youth representatives together, galvanizing them into the formation of a united front against the Muslim Brotherhood-led government.

Context and Political Opportunity Structure

Egypt's 6-month-old constitution was dropped in the aftermath of the second wave of mass uprisings that gripped the country in June 2013. Abdel Fattah el Sissi, the then Minister of Defense, intervened militarily, and on July 3, 2013, announced a new roadmap that involved the appointment of Adly Mansour, the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court, as interim president until new presidential elections materialized. Confrontations ensued between supporters of President Morsi and the new authorities, leading to continued bloodshed and violence (Abou Bakr Reference Abou Bakr2015). One of the first steps taken after the ousting of President Morsi was to announce the drafting of a new constitution. The climate for feminist mobilization was mixed. Even though the political opening (at least in 2013) still enabled some level of feminist mobilization, there was fragmentation. In 2011–2012, the perceived threat emanating from the intensity of the backlash against women's rights served as a centripetal force uniting women's rights’ activists around a common platform, but feminists were divided in 2013. Some feminists objected to the military being given privileges in the constitution and boycotted participation altogether; others believed there was no choice but to seize the opportunity of en-gendering the constitution (Kamal Reference Kamal2015). Moreover, severe encroachment on civil society and rising political repression circumscribed the opportunities for using tactics of street activism.

Coalitional Politics and Repertoires of Bargaining Power

The process of drawing up the 2014 constitution materialized through two constitutional bodies intended to review the 2012 constitution (Kamal Reference Kamal2015, 158). The first was the 10-member constitutional expert committee comprising six representatives nominated by three courts and four constitutional law academics nominated by the Supreme Council of Egyptian Universities. This committee did not include a single woman. The second was the constitutional committee comprised of 50 members, 80% of whom were nominated by their respective political parties, religious institutions, trade unions, and syndicates, revolutionary youth, and 20% public figures appointed by the government. Islamic or Islamist representation comprised roughly 12% of the constituent assembly: three leaders from Al-Azhar religious establishment, one representative from (the ultra-radical) Al Nour party, and two Islamist-leading public figures, with no representation from the Muslim Brotherhood. Five women represented 10% of the constitutional committee. This proportion was only marginally better than the 2012 drafting committee in which women had 7% representation. However, substantively, the difference was dramatic. Of the five women chosen to be on the constitutional assembly, at least four women had a strong track record of championing women's rights, particularly through advocacy for reform of legislation that discriminates against women, advancement of new legislation to expand women's rights, media advocacy against misogynistic discourses, and social practices that enforce patriarchal gender hierarchies. Two of them had previously led the national women's machineries: Azza El Ashmawy had been a representative for the National Council of Motherhood and Childhood and Mervat El Telawi had been the head of the National Council for Women. The third was Mona Zu el Fuqar, one of the most influential lawyers defending women's rights in Egypt and a representative for the National Council for Human Rights, and Hoda Elsadda, professor of English literature, founder of Woman and Memory, a leading feminist activist whose work and mentoring have been highly influential in the lives of generations of women. The fifth candidate was Abla Mohey El Deen, representative for the Industrial Chambers committee.

In terms of substantive representation, these five women presented a bloc that pushed almost consistently for an expansion of rights. Other than the fact that ideologically, all were of a non-Islamist political background and used a discourse of a commitment to women's equal citizenship rights, they did not represent a politically cohesive group. Tallawy's and Ashmawy's political agendas could be expected to be aligned with the government, in view of their previous appointments on national women's machineries—institutions that enjoy minimal autonomy (Tadros Reference Tadros2016; Amar Reference Amar2013; Elsadda Reference Elsadda2012; Khafagy Reference Khafagy.2007). However, it is difficult to dismiss women's constitutional representation as simply exemplifying “classic, Mubarak-style tokenism” as has been argued by leading scholar Mervat Hatem on the nature of women's representation during the interim government rule in Egypt, post 2013 (Hatem Reference Hatem2013, 11). Two factors support this argument. First, Hoda Elsadda, who wielded the most power among the women due to her position as head of the human rights committee, had been and remained independent of the government prior to and after the ousting of Mubarak. In 2013, when she was appointed to the constituent assembly, she held the position of the vice president of the Egyptian Social Democratic party, a left-of-center opposition party. She also remained engaged in autonomous feminist mobilization through Women and Memory and other nongovernmental platforms, and in 2011, she refused to accept a governing seat position on the National Council for Women. The second dynamic was that in 2013, the power configurations were still fluid within the constituent assembly, thereby requiring significant negotiations on the part of the women to secure any women's rights.

Advancing women's rights required a negotiation among different political actors on an article-by-article basis. Like its predecessor, the constitution drawing committee reflected the power configuration in which the Islamists had shifted from being a political majority to a minority. This shift however, did not mean that women's rights activists could, by default, rely on the majority to champion gender equality. Elsadda noted that some distinguished “liberals” (i.e., those who claimed to be in favor of a politically open democratic system) unexpectedly launched the most vehement blockage to women's rights in the constitution. Some members (e.g., representatives of unions and syndicates) were willing to concede to having an article prohibiting violence against women but completely rejected the idea of affirmative action for women. The five women individually and collectively forged alliances across some (liberal) parties and various institutions. In return for their endorsement of each group's interests, they would support an agenda that enhanced women's rights. For example, these five women refused to endorse a quota for workers or farmers unless their representatives conceded to having a quota for women. Hence, the representation of a wide spectrum of interest-based groups in the constituent assembly did not make the assembly pro-women's rights by default. However, it enabled the pro-women's rights representatives to leverage their unified, collective voices to engage in intense bargaining to secure a more gender-sensitive constitution.

Political and Ideological Struggles around Gender

A constitutional referendum was held in Egypt in January 2014, with a turnout of 38.6%, and the new constitution was approved by 98.1% of voters. A gender-sensitive reading of the Egyptian constitution of 2014 suggests that some of the losses made in the constitution of 2012 were redressed, with some new gains, though not fulfilling all the aspirations of women's rights activists and leaving some anxieties about the broader environment of political freedom. The scrapping of article 219 from the 2014 constitution highlighted the threat that conservative readings of Islamic jurisprudence could be used to curb women's rights. For the first time, the constitution stipulated that the state was committed to women holding public and senior management offices, to the appropriate representation of women in legislative bodies (thus endorsing the principle of affirmative action), and to women's appointments in the male-dominated and exclusionary judicial bodies without discrimination (Table 1). Article 180 set a quarter of seats in the local council for women, again for the first time. In view of the power that local councils assume in governance, this change would potentially expand the opportunities for the political leadership of women. Also for the first time, the state was committed to protecting women from all forms of violence (article 11 of the constitution). Moreover, the same article secured the rights of Egyptian citizens to pass on their nationality to their children, irrespective of their gender. Although the decree prohibiting women from passing on their nationality to their children had been overturned during Mubarak's era (albeit with an exception for women married to Palestinians, who need a special permit), by enshrining it within the constitution, any reversal would be made far more difficult to overturn by government policy. Moreover, article 93 stipulated the state's commitment to ratified international conventions, including the CEDAW. Egypt's commitments to CEDAW had been used as a yardstick by a coalition of feminist and developmental organizations during Mubarak's era (the CEDAW coalition) to hold the Egyptian government to account for its women's rights records at the Commission on the Status of Women and other international platforms. It was hoped that the integration of such an article would increase the leverage of the CEDAW coalition and other platforms to call the government to account when political opportunity arises (Tadros Reference Tadros2016).

Political and Ideological Struggles around Gender

The political opportunity for feminist mobilization in 2011–2012 was favorable because of the existence of political space to engage in activism. This opportunity was seized by feminist actors who coalesced into coalitions, displaying a relatively united front against perceived threats to women's rights. The political opportunity structure was different in 2013. Opportunities for grassroots mobilization began to be circumscribed by shrinking civil space. Moreover, the formation of feminist collectives that would coalesce around common agendas was undermined by a schism that emerged between them around the legitimacy of engaging with a new status quo that came to power via military intervention. Consequently, those feminists who opted to mobilize for en-gendering the constitution engaged directly with the women representatives on the constitution drawing committee, pressing for the implementation of the same demands (as part of broader coalitions) that they had made in the constitution writing process of 2012.

Significantly, despite the conspicuous absence of unified feminist coalitions mobilizing for en-gendering the constitution in 2014 compared to that of 2012, the gender equality outcomes of both constitutions are starkly different (Table 1). Four years after the inauguration of the constitution of 2014, the outcomes of implementation and enforcement have also been inconsistent. On one hand, some positive gender outcomes have emanated from the constitution. Based on the constitutional principle of affirmative action, in the parliamentary electoral law that ensued, a quota of 56 seats was allocated to women as well as half the presidential appointments, amounting to 14 seats (Hassan Reference Hassan2015). In the 2016 parliament, 89 women joined parliament (75 won seats of a total 568 seats, and 14 were appointed by the president). Thus, women constituted 14.9% of MPs, and although this is still a small percentage, it marks the highest female representation in Egypt's parliamentary history (El-Behary Reference El-Behary2014). Moreover, the constitutional article on redressing gender discrimination in the judiciary has also been partly activated. In June 2015, 26 new female judges were sworn in office in the largest appointment of women in the judiciary since 2007 (Messieh and Gaber Reference Messieh and Gaber2015). For the first time ever, in 2015, a woman was appointed assistant to the head of the Court of Cassation (i.e., the highest court of appeal) (Abou Bakr Reference Abou Bakr2015). Against the backdrop of high levels of sexual harassment in Egypt (El-Dabh Reference El-Dabh2013), Egypt passed its first law against sexual harassment in 2014. The sexual harassment law leaves much to be desired in terms of its enforceability; however, it criminalizes a wide array of expressions of sexual harassment including digital forms and recognizes harassment against both women and men (see Harassmap 2014 for text of the law).

On one hand, there has been a severe encroachment on civil liberties and a regression toward authoritarian rule since 2013 (Reference Brown and BentivoglioBrown and Bentivoglio Reference Brown and Bentivoglio2014). The Ministry of Interior introduced a new protest law that prohibits public gatherings or protest without prior permission, thereby obstructing one key way in which women's activists’ can hold the government accountable. Women's rights defenders have also been imprisoned for challenging the law. Moreover, the political environment for civil society organizations including women's NGOs, is considered more hostile than that which existed during Mubarak's reign (Amnesty International 2016). A new NGO law passed in 2017 severely inhibits civil society organizations’ liberties (UN News Center, 2017).

There is another major hurdle for mobilizing for women's equality claims making. Women's rights mobilization continues to be deeply polarized between those who consider any engagement with the government in place anathema because it legitimizes authoritarian rule and those who believe that there is an obligation to press for redressing gender inequalities even if it means engaging with the authorities. As of July 2018, there is no sign that the fissures are healing.

The absence of effective implementation mechanisms in the Egyptian constitution of 2014 (Al-Ali Reference Al-Ali, Bernard and Lacroix2016) represents enforcement dilemmas, ones that feminist scholarship have identified as key for the effective redress of unequal power relations constitutionally (Baines and Rubio-Marin Reference Baines, Rubio-Marin, Baines and Rubio-Marin2004; Cichowski Reference Cichowski, Waylen, Celis and Weldon2013, 589 and 592; Irving Reference Irving2012). Although the constitution of 2014 is more gender just than its predecessors with respect to constitutional design and specific articles relating to women's rights, without a unified feminist front as well as the political opportunity to hold authorities to account for enforcement, its mobilization power is stunted. However, as Cassola et al. (Reference Cassola, Raub, Folley and Heymann2014) and Waylen (Reference Waylen2006) note that, at the very least, when more gender-sensitive constitutions are promulgated, they become more difficult to repeal or amend than other legislative or policy commitments. In that sense, the Egyptian case study supports other scholarship that highlights the importance of a constitution having articles that clearly stimulate a commitment to gender equality as the normative and legal basis for pro-equality claims-making thereafter. However, it also highlights that to press the state to enforce its constitutional commitments, basic liberties such as freedom of organization and association are essential, so accountability has “teeth,” meaning the clout to hold power-holders answerable for their actions, or lack thereof (Fox Reference Fox2015, 347–48).