Yehia Abdel Aziz Abdel Fatah El-Gamal (Arabic: يحيى عبد العزيز عبد الفتاح الجمل; 15 August 1930 – 21 November 2016) was an Egyptian lawyer, professor of constitutional law, and politician. He served as Deputy Prime Minister of Egypt from January to July 2011, during the period following the Egyptian Revolution.
Early Life and Education
El-Gamal was born on 15 August 1930 in Egypt. He studied law at Cairo University and received his PhD in 1967 from the same institution. He was a classmate of Ahmad Zaki Yamani, the former Saudi oil minister.
Political Career
El-Gamal served as Minister of State and Administrative Reform from 1974 to 1975 under the premiership of Abd El Aziz Muhammad Hegazi and the presidency of Anwar Sadat. He was also a member of the People's Assembly (Egypt's parliament).
In 2007, he co-founded the liberal Democratic Front Party. On 29 January 2011, interim Prime Minister Ahmed Shafik appointed him as his deputy. He retained this position when Essam Sharaf succeeded Shafik as prime minister on 3 March 2011. After massive protests on Tahrir Square in Cairo, El-Gamal resigned on 12 July 2011.
He was an adherent of the National Association for Change, which endorsed the candidacy of Mohamed ElBaradei for the 2011 presidential election. He also chaired the National Consensus, a conference that monitored the interim period.
Academic and Legal Career
Since 1975, El-Gamal was a professor of constitutional law at Cairo University. He served as a visiting professor at several universities, including Kuwait University, Khartoum University, Baghdad University, Rabat University, and Georgetown University. He was a member of the board of trustees of the Arab Organization for Human Rights and of the International Court of Arbitration. He also practiced as an attorney and headed the El Gamal Law Firm.
Publications
El-Gamal published several books on constitutional and administrative law, contemporary political systems, and local government. He also published his memoirs in a book titled Kesat Haya Adeyya (An Ordinary Life Story), first published in 2002 and republished in 2011.
Death
Yehia El-Gamal died on 21 November 2016 at the age of 86.
Note: There is also a separate individual named Yehia El-Gamal (died 6 March 2021), an Egyptian professor of pediatrics who founded the Pediatric Allergy and Immunology Unit at Ain Shams University and established the field of pediatric allergy and immunology in Egypt. These are two distinct individuals.
