President Mohamed Morsi's 22 November constitutional decree prompted a new spate of resignations from the Constituent Assembly. Mohamed Dawoud and Mohamed Kamel joined their Wafd Party colleagues who withdrew last week, saying Morsi's dictatorial decree left them no choice but to quit the assembly's ranks. “After Morsi placed himself above any kind of judicial scrutiny I decided to withdraw in protest at his violation of constitutional principles,” Dawoud told Al-Ahram Weekly. “Morsi's sweeping decree runs counter to any form of democratic transition. It makes it clear neither he nor the Muslim Brotherhood, from whose ranks he came, can be trusted with drafting a constitution that will win the support of the Egyptian people.” Al-Ahram journalist and poet Farouk Guweida also withdrew in the wake of Morsi's decree. In a letter to assembly chairman Hossam Al-Ghiriani, Guweida said he had opted to leave after it became clear that the Constituent Assembly had become so mired in divisions that it had lost any credibility with the public. “It is a tragedy the way some people are forcing their agenda on the assembly, and a sin that they insist on mixing religion with politics,” said Guweida. Ashraf Abdel-Ghafour, chairman of the Actors Syndicate, also resigned. While Al-Ghiriani urged those who had withdrawn to rejoin the ranks of the assembly so as not “to miss out on the honour of participating in the writing of Egypt's greatest constitution” he seemed otherwise unperturbed by the defections. “When we began the process of drafting the constitution we decided to put aside our ideological leanings,” said Al-Ghiriani on 25 November. “It is deplorable that some members have now withdrawn because of their ideologies.” Al-Ghiriani added that “although President Morsi's decree gives the assembly two more months [until 12 February] to finalise its draft of the constitution I and most of assembly members believe we do not need the extra time”. Over several meetings the depleted assembly finalised 20 articles regulating the relationship between judicial authorities and the presidency. Minister of Parliamentary and Legal Affairs Mohamed Mahsoub argued that “the amendments strip the presidency of 75 per cent of its powers.” “Under the new amendments the president has the power to declare a state of emergency but only for one week and conditional on the approval of parliament. Any extension beyond that will require approval in a public referendum,” Mahsoub told parliamentary journalists on 21 November. “The president will also require the approval of parliament before dismissing the government or forming a new one.” “Under the mixed presidential-parliamentary system proposed, in which the president and prime minister share power, there will be no need for a vice president,” Mahsoub continued. Under Article 156 of the draft “the prime minister takes over if the president dies, resigns or is otherwise prevented from performing his duties.” Article 156 also states that “the president may be tried before a special court” formed by the Supreme Judicial Council as long as the referral to trial wins the support of two thirds of MPs. The president will also be stripped of the right to declare war. “Under Article 149,” says Mahsoub, “the president will have to seek the approval of the National Defence Council before war is declared or Armed Forces sent to a foreign territory.” Under the draft constitution the president will still name the prime minister but should the president's nominee fail to win the confidence of parliament it will be up to the upper house of parliament to name an alternative. Several articles regulating presidential elections were also approved. Articles 138 and 139 state that “presidential elections will be held by secret ballot… if a candidate dies before a second round run-off whoever received the most votes in the first round will be named president.” Article 140 stipulates that the president-elect must be sworn into office before the two houses of parliament, though should either one of the two houses be dissolved at the time of swearing in it will be sufficient for the oath to be taken before the house that remains sitting. Article 227 limits presidential terms to four years, and any incumbent to two terms. Parliamentary elections, the assembly has decided, will be held under a mixed individual and party-list system. Under Article 221 presidential and parliamentary elections will be overseen by a judicial commission. On 22 November the assembly approved Article 220, the controversial explanatory gloss of “the principles of Islamic Sharia” that Article 2 makes the main source of legislation. According to Article 220 these principles must “include its core basics, its fundamentalist and jurisprudent rules and highly esteemed sources of Sunni Islam clerics”. Salafist members of the assembly had threatened that they would withdraw should Article 220 be amended. “If this article had been changed in any way we would be back to square one,” said Salafist Younis Makhioun. Former mufti Nasr Farid Wassel argues that far from opening the door to the implementation of Wahhabi style Islam in Egypt, Article 220 “guarantees that no force can hijack the constitution to impose a radical version of Islam”. The assembly also approved two articles regulating the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC). The first article obliges the SCC to rule on the constitutionality of laws regulating presidential, parliamentary and local elections and the exercise of political rights before, rather than after, they go into effect. Gamal Gibril, chairman of the Constituent Assembly's System of Governance sub-Committee, argued that the change was necessary because “we can never accept a democratically-elected parliament being dissolved on the grounds that the election law under which it was elected was flawed.” “The court has to tell us whether the law is constitutional before polls are held and a parliament elected.” The SCC, Gibril added, will be required to provide a verdict on the laws in question within 35 days of their being approved by parliament and before elections are held.
