Ahmed Fahmi, chairman of the Islamist-led Shura Council and a leading official of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), announced on Sunday that the Shura Council approved amendments to the 1956 law on the exercise of political rights that were ready to be referred to the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) for review, writes Gamal Essam El-Din. Fahmi also said the council would begin next week to amend the 1972 law regulating elections to the lower chamber, formerly the People's Assembly and now the House of Representatives. SCC approval for both laws is needed before parliamentary elections can be held: until that happens legislative power will remain with the Shura Council, elected by a tiny proportion of registered voters. The two laws regulating political rights and elections to the House of Representatives were first amended by the Shura Council on 11 April. They were referred to the SCC for revision, in accordance with Article 177 of the constitution, on 14 April. The SCC sent them back to the council on 25 May having judged nine articles of the law on the exercise of political rights and four articles of the law regulating parliamentary elections incompatible with the constitution drafted by the Islamist-dominated constituent assembly last December. The SCC ruled that stripping military and police personnel of voting rights violated the principles of citizenship enshrined in the constitution. The court also criticised the Shura Council's decision to lift the ban on the use of religious slogans during elections, arguing that it undermined the principle of national unity espoused by the constitution and obstructed citizens' ability to elect candidates on objective grounds. The court also curtailed the right of the president to set the date for parliamentary elections and insisted that the expatriate vote be conducted under full judicial supervision. The Shura Council's Sunday debate of the SCC rulings saw members divided. Hatem Bagato, newly-appointed minister of parliamentary affairs, and Major General Mamdouh Shahin, deputy defence minister for legislative affairs, said they agreed that army and police personnel must be granted voting rights under the new constitution though they argued this right should be “delayed” until July 2020. The inclusion of soldiers and police in the electorate, believe analysts, will work against the Muslim Brotherhood. “We were not surprised by the SCC's ruling. We want a delay because we need time to add the names of army and police personnel to the electoral roll,” claimed Shahin. Bagato presented a more convoluted argument. “Allowing army personnel to vote in the coming parliamentary elections will expose their exact number at the expense of national security,” he said. “The names of army and police people should be added gradually and be complete by 1 July 2020.” The Shura Council agreed to change the law to state “army and police personnel will be excluded from voting in elections until 1 July 2020”. While the latest amendment was supported by the Shura Council's Islamist majority, MP Mamdouh Ramzi warned that it would be ruled unconstitutional by the SCC. “National security cannot be cited as a plausible excuse for delaying the voting rights of army and police personnel,” he said. “Shahin was a member of the constitution-drafting assembly. Surely he must have known the constitution gave the army and police the right to vote yet at the time he raised no objections, on national security or any other grounds.” Rami Lakah, like Ramzy an appointed MP, said “if Shahin and Bagato's unconvincing reasons for delaying the voting rights of the military and police show anything it is that the constitution was bulldozed through without much debate or regard for national consensus.” He also questioned how it could possibly take seven years to place the names of army and police personnel on voter lists. “Attempts to postpone the voting rights of army and police personnel are being tailored to serve the Muslim Brotherhood's election chances,” independent MP Gamal Zahran told Al-Ahram Weekly. “A majority of both are opposed to the rule of Muslim Brotherhood. Allowing them to vote could have a profound impact on the outcome of upcoming elections, both parliamentary and presidential.” Shura MPs were also divided over SCC's order to restrict the president's right to decide the date of parliamentary elections. FJP MPs insist the SCC's order does not apply to the upcoming parliamentary election. “The coming election cannot be considered a new one,” FJP spokesman Essam Al-Erian argued. “The next parliamentary elections are to be held after the 2012 People's Assembly was dissolved by the SCC and must therefore be considered a re-run vote in which the right of the president to announce the date still applies.” Even some FJP MPs found Al-Erian's convoluted logic unconvincing. “The SCC stressed that any election held after the constitution was promulgated must be place under the complete supervision of the Supreme Elections Committee (SEC) and that includes the right to announce the date of the election,” said Sobhi Saleh, a leading FJP official and a member of the council's Legislative Affairs Committee. The problem, says professor of constitutional law Maged Al-Hilw, is that “the constitution contains ambiguities about who is entrusted with setting the date of elections”. “It gives the president the right to dissolve parliament under certain conditions but remains unclear on who sets a date for new elections.” The constitution, he argued, needs redrafting so that complete oversight of all polls is explicitly placed in the hands of the SEC. Following Sunday's Shura Council debate, Article 31 of the law was amended to give the SEC the final say on setting the date of parliamentary elections which must be announced at least 60 days ahead of the voting day. In the event that parliament is dissolved the president keeps the right “to invite citizens to a referendum or new parliamentary elections”. The agreed text added that “in times of emergency both the president and SEC reserve the right to delay parliamentary elections or referendums or elections in specific districts”. “Again the Muslim Brotherhood has intervened to impose its agenda in violation of a constitution its supporters drafted and in opposition to the SCC's ruling,” says Zahran. “The Muslim Brotherhood refuses to abide by laws or even its own controversial constitution.” Al-Erian conceded that “the constitution is in urgent need of amendments”. Despite differences, a majority of Shura Council deputies ratified the SCC's order on imposing a ban on religious slogans. They also approved placing the voting of Egyptians abroad under judicial supervision. But while the SCC had ruled that the count at auxiliary voting stations affiliated to Egyptian embassies abroad must be judicially supervised, the council insists that the votes of Egyptians abroad be sent by mail to Egypt and then counted under the supervision of judges. “Sending judges to supervising the voting of Egyptians abroad could cost LE37 million,” complained Bagato. He provided no breakdown of his figures.
