“After seven closed-door meetings, 55 articles — a quarter of the new constitution — have been approved,” says Mohamed Salmawy, spokesman of the 50-member committee appointed to draft a revised constitution. The approved articles have been forwarded to the 10-member judicial committee which will review the language of the texts before they are officially endorsed by the 50-member committee in a final vote early next month. The approved articles are from chapters two and three of the constitution which regulate rights and freedoms, including the rights to protest, to public assembly and to form political parties which the draft constitution stipulates requires only prior notice. “The right to form political parties by giving prior notice will automatically lead to the elimination of the political parties committee, a body that has controlled the licensing of political parties since 1977,” said Salmawy. Changes to Article 54 ban political parties based on religious grounds. The article, says Salmawy, now reads: “Citizens have the right to form political parties after giving notice to be regulated by law. No practice of political activity and no formation of political parties will be allowed on the basis of religion or which discriminate on the basis of gender or geographical location or which are anti-democratic or secret or military or semi-military. Political parties can be dissolved only by judicial order.” “What is significant about Article 54 is that political activity based on any religious foundation will be illegal,” argued Salmawy. “In 2007 the 1971 constitution was amended to impose a ban on the formation of political parties with a religious background. The new amendments extend this ban to include all political activities based on religious grounds.” The draft triggered a furious reaction from the Salafist Nour Party. “The language of this article is ambiguous,” claims Nour Party official Salah Abdel-Maaboud. He argued that a clear distinction must be made between religious parties, which should be defined as those that only allow members of a particular religion to join, and political parties with an Islamic background which “conform with Article 2 of the constitution which states that principles of Islamic Sharia form the major source of legislation”. Abdel-Maaboud warned that revisions to Article 54 could be exploited by secularists to exclude Islamists from the political scene. Article 219, which Salmawy pointed out “formed a basic part of the 2012 constitution drafted by Islamists under the deposed regime of the Muslim Brotherhood”, remains a point of contention. The Nour Party representative on the Committee of Fifty is fighting to retain elements of the article, which gives a definition of Islamic Sharia, somewhere in the new constitution. Committee chairman Amr Moussa has ordered a round of negotiations over the contentious clauses and according to Salmawy, “there is a concrete progress towards reaching a compromise on the issue.” Committee member Mohamed Ghoneim says most members of the committee agree that “it would be unwise to include an article defining the principles of Islamic Sharia and that the constitution's preamble, which in 1996 set the benchmark as the principles of Islamic Sharia as defined by the Supreme Constitutional Court, should be adopted”. Ghoneim also revealed the word “civilian” had been removed from Article 1 which now reads “Egypt is a sovereign constitutional [rather than civilian] state.” Salmawy hailed the end of jail terms for publication offences which will be enshrined in the constitution. “This is a qualitative leap for Egypt and for defenders of press freedoms in this country,” he said. Revised Article 52 now reads: “No censorship, confiscation or closure or shutdown of any kind can be imposed on Egyptian newspapers and other media outlets except in exceptional circumstances such as times of war or public mobilisation when limited censorship may be imposed... no prison penalties can be imposed for publication offences except those inciting violence or discrimination among citizens or discrediting individuals.” Salmawy claimed the article prohibited the imposition of any kind of censorship while the state of emergency is in force. “The 2012 constitution drafted by Islamists opened the door to censorship of the print media, particularly during states of emergency, a position the revised article redresses.” New articles have been drafted to guarantee the independence of state-owned media. “A new article states that ‘the government guarantees that the press organisations and other media outlets it owns are independent and will reflect the diversity of opinions in society without bias.'” The article, said Salmawy, “will safeguard state-owned media from falling under the control of the ruling political party as happened under Hosni Mubarak and Mohamed Morsi”. The future of state-owned press organisations will ultimately be settled by the National Press Authority, a body that will be formed following the promulgation of the new constitution to regulate the performance of the state-owned press. Meanwhile, chairman Moussa announced “an open-door session” will be held in the next few days to review the committee's progress. “The committee has a month in which to finalise a new constitution,” he said. “Let me stress that we are under no pressure from any force — including the military or Minister of Defence Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi — to give immunity to any person or institution.” “The constitution will ensure the president is the main but not the only decision-maker. The president will share powers with the prime minister and parliament in a balanced way.”
