2014 to mid-2017 pardoning these individuals for the original penalty or the remainder thereof, and the accessory penalty for 1,072 of those sentenced. 13. Article 204 of the 2014 Constitution stipulates that The Military Judiciary is an independent judiciary that adjudicates exclusively in all crimes related to the armed forces, their officers, personnel, and their equals, and in the crimes committed by general intelligence personnel during and related to the service. Civilians cannot stand trial before military courts except for crimes that represent a direct assault against military facilities, military barracks, or whatever falls under their authority; stipulated military or border zones; military equipment, vehicles, weapons, ammunition, documents, military secrets, public funds or military factories; crimes related to conscription; or crimes that represent a direct assault against military officers or personnel related to the performance of their duties. Decree No. 136 of 2014 on the protection of public and vital institutions means that military jurisdiction is restricted to the crimes committed against those installations under the protection of the armed forces in collaboration with the police forces, and makes this conditional on the duration of such protection. In view of Egypt’s experiences in terms of terrorist attacks against its citizens and vital installations, the duration of this decree was extended by five years, ending in October 2021. Accordingly, the criterion of jurisdiction of the military judiciary, in accordance with the Egyptian judicial system, is an objective criterion unrelated to the perpetrators of these crimes, but rather to the nature of the crimes committed. The same laws and rules applied by the ordinary judiciary are applied to these offences, as affirmed by Decree No. 21 of 2015, introduced to amend certain provisions of the military judiciary Decree, No. 25 of 1966, preventing the subordination of those not subjected to the Constitution and the law. Accused individuals facing trial before the military judiciary shall have the same guarantees of fair trial as those before the ordinary courts, in terms of the right to defense, access to documents, public hearings, the right to appeal against a sentence before a higher court, including the application of the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, Cases and proceedings before the Court of Cassation No. 57 of 1959 on appeals before the military judiciary, in addition to the military judges' enjoyment of the guarantees enshrined in the Constitution in Article 204, which stated in its last paragraph that the Members of the Military 43