Dr. Ibrahim Abdel Aziz Dawood
Associate Professor of Civil Law – Law Department – Ahmed bin Muhammad Military College – Doha – Qatar

Abstract:

The topic of this research revolves around studying the effectiveness of the legal system to ensure the safety of people from damages of defective products in Egyptian law. Despite the Egyptian law’s interest in ensuring the safety of people, the technological development has led to a diversification of products that lack the elements of safety and security, exposing people to great risks and damages, which represented a challenge to the general rules in civil law and to private legal systems. This resulted in the following problematic: If the Egyptian legal system tends to rely on commitment to safety, whether in its contractual form in civil law or in its legal form in consumer protection law, then the question posed by the research is the extent of the efficiency and effectiveness of these legal systems.
Since the aim of this research is to try to endeavor to adopt an effective legal system to ensure the safety of people from damages to defective products, achieving this goal does not require only examining the efficiency of the legal means approved by the Egyptian legal system, but rather seeking other legal solutions that reinforce this goal. There is no doubt that this can only be achieved through the use of French law, which is one of the most important sources of Egyptian law. The research concluded the shortcomings of the Egyptian legal system related to ensuring the safety of people from damages of defective products, whether within the framework of the general rules of civil law, or within the framework of the consumer protection law. Commitment to contractual safety has clearly retracted its role in ensuring safety. The Consumer Protection Law did not set a specific definition for the defect of lack of safety, nor did it stipulate that the defect in the absence of the safety and security in products should be considered a legal basis in the lawsuits to compensate those affected by these defects.
As a result, the study recommended that the Egyptian legislator adopt a unified legal system to ensure the safety of people from damages caused by defective products, and that its foundations and pillars be inspired by the law of objective liability for defective products adopted by the French legislator due to its coherent and interconnected structure.

Keywords: Safety commitment, contract liability, product liability, consumer protection law, special legal systems.

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