Egypt's state of emergency ends after 31 years A constitutional declaration ratified in a referendum in March last year gave the military the responsibility to "protect" the country but said only parliament had the right to proclaim a state of emergency, at the executive's request. The military had suspended the constitution after Mubarak's overthrow. Essam Erian, the deputy leader of the Islamist Freedom and Justice Party, which has the most seats in parliament, said the military's statement indicated it would not ask parliament to extend the law. The party's leader and presidential candidate Mohammed Mursi has said the law will not be renewed. Ending the state of emergency was a key demand of protesters who toppled Mubarak in an 18-day popular uprising in January and February last year. Thousands of Egyptians had been jailed under the law over the previous decades. Many have been released since the military took power. But the ruling generals have themselves been criticised for trying thousands in military courts, which resemble the state security emergency tribunals in the limited rights afforded to defendants, human rights groups say. "This is historic because the state of emergency was one of the Mubarak police state's tools," said Heba Morayef, a Cairo-based researcher for Human Rights Watch. "It is a reflection of the fact that the age when the interior ministry was above the law and had unlimited power is over," she said. "Unfortunately, this will not end most serious abuses that we saw over the last year and a half, because those were committed by the military and legitimised by military courts," she added.