Egypt’s New Medical Liability Law (2025)

Medical liability, also known as medical malpractice, refers to the legal responsibility of healthcare providers for harm caused to patients due to their actions or omissions during medical care.
Replacing Law No.17 of 1986, the legislator intervened with the adoption of Law No. 13 of 2025, marking a fundamental transformation from the earlier provisions, which provided a general and limited framework for regulating medical conduct.

I) An Improved Framework for Patient Protection

One of the main purposes is to protect patients from potential malpractice. Hence, the law provides for the following:

• Right to safe medical care (Article 2): Ensures access to medical care in accordance with medical and ethical standards, such as transparency towards the patient.
• Strict conditions to surgical interventions (Article 7): The law specifies the conditions that must be met for medical practitioners to perform surgical interventions.
• Prompt review of complaints (Article 13): Any patient’s complaint must be reviewed by a technical subcommittee.
• Amicable dispute resolution (Article 15): Patients may resort to amicable dispute resolution through conciliation committees, in order to avoid lengthy legal proceedings.
• Access to compensation (Article 20): This article launches a state-managed insurance fund aiming to compensate patients for medical errors.

Even though the principal goal is to protect patients, it is equally important to acknowledge the progress in terms of protection for medical practitioners, providing for a more thorough and just medical liability system.

II) Efficient Safeguard of the Medical Profession

The new legislation is also designed to secure legal safeguards for medical practitioners. Accordingly, the law provides the following:

• Categorization of errors (Article 4): Unlike the previous law, the new one distinguishes between different types of errors, therefore offering a safer environment to practice medicine. It separates between unintentional, unavoidable complications from punishable negligence, since the Article defines the cases where practitioners are exempted from medical liability. This protects doctors from being held liable for natural risks. Hence, medical professionals can efficiently practice without fear of being convicted or falsely accused of a grander error rather than the appropriate one in its respective circumstance or a natural risk.
• Rules regarding reconciliation between patients and medical practitioners (Article 29): The right for victims to request the relevant court or investigation committee to establish its reconciliation with the accused, i.e. the medical practitioner.
• Technical review before legal action (Article 14): Where a complaint is submitted to the competent sub-committee, the Supreme Committee shall confirm the presence of medical fault and send its report to the complainant, who can then submit an appeal in accordance with the procedures and steps established by decision of the Supreme Committee.
• State insurance coverage (Article 20): The State provides mandatory insurance to compensate for medical errors, which protects doctors from personal financial difficulties.

Other than the protection of the parties involved in any medical liability issue — patients and healthcare providers — there has been a major addition to the relevant legal system. The Supreme Committee for Medical Responsibility was created.

III) The Supreme Committee for Medical Responsibility Paves the Road to an Effective Dispute Resolution Process (Articles 9–19)

Chapter 3 of the law in question introduces the Supreme Committee for Medical Responsibility, protecting both patients and healthcare providers, ensuring an efficient process. The Committee is composed of medical, forensic, and legal experts tasked with reviewing any alleged error, regardless of its nature. The Prime Minister appoints one of the two medical experts as the chairperson and the other as deputy chairperson.

Article 10 of the law contains the Committee’s following powers and responsibilities:

• Assess complaints against medical professionals for alleged errors
• Refer established errors to investigative authorities or professional syndicates
• Approve reports and amicable settlements emitted by subcommittees (formed to examine specific complaints based on medical specialties)
• Review appeals against subcommittee reports
• Coordinate with syndicates and competent bodies to issue awareness guidelines for patients’ rights
• Create and manage a national database for medical errors

While many countries had earlier enacted similar laws such as France with Law No. 2002-1577 of 30 December and Saudi Arabia with The Law of Practicing Healthcare Professions of 2005 (“The 2005 Law”), Egypt’s latest legislation concerning medical liability law is a significant step in reforming the legal framework that governs the health care sector.

Even though the legislation is proper to the local, social, and legal context, this new legislation manifests a wider transition towards formalizing the responsibilities of medical professionals and protecting patient rights, aiming to strike a balance between the patient’s health and the physicians’ professional liability.