The Supreme Administrative Court has rejected a draft dodging MP's last-ditch appeal, setting the stage for 15 MPs to be formally stripped of their seats. Gamal Essam El-Din reports When the People's Assembly reconvenes on 12 November, its opening procedural meeting should finally bring to a dramatic end the three- year-old saga of the draft-dodging MPs. 15 National Democratic Party (NDP) deputies' parliamentary memberships will be revoked for having not done their military service. A 16th MP -- the NDP's Abdallah Tayel, a business tycoon and former chairman of parliament's economic committee -- will also be removed from the assembly. Tayel was sentenced on 10 September to 10 years in jail for profiteering, forging official documents, and facilitating the embezzlement of LE262 million. Expelling these delinquent deputies is parliament's first order of business, in order to ensure the MPs won't be there when President Mubarak delivers a keynote speech before parliament on 16 November. Until 3 November, the fate of the MPs was still up in the air. On that day, the Supreme Administrative Court (SAC) rejected an appeal filed by Hermas Radwan, who had his parliamentary membership, along with 14 others, revoked by the assembly's legislative and constitutional affairs committee on 10 September. The committee's decision was in line with a 17 August Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) ruling that MPs who had not done their military service, or who had no legal reason for exemption, must be suspended. Radwan's lawyer, Awad El-Morr, a former Supreme Constitutional Court chairman, said the 17 August decision was not a ruling, "but just an interpretation", which gave Radwan the right to file an appeal with the SAC. El-Morr said Radwan had the right to dispute the constitutionality of his dismissal from parliament, and especially the stipulation permanently banning him and the other affected MPs from ever running in elections again. The law, El-Morr argued, was treating Radwan like a foreigner, since stripping a citizen of his political rights forever was unconstitutional. El-Morr also argued that the same laws discriminated against men. "While they require men to provide a military certificate in order to be officially eligible to run in elections, they say nothing about asking women to provide 'a national service' certificate, which is also a basic legal requirement for them to be allowed to run," El-Morr said. According to El-Morr, the SCC's 17 August "interpretation" must also apply to members of local elected municipal councils as well as senior government officials. Radwan had spread rumours that a large number of cabinet ministers had not done their military service. The SAC rejected all of El-Morr's arguments. The court described the 17 August SCC ruling as being both clear and binding, "because military service is a national obligation every Egyptian citizen must perform out of loyalty to his country. Performing military service is a holy duty for which citizens can be stripped of standing in elections forever," the court said. Informed sources said parliament was also looking into the cases of five other MPs, including Hosni Bihalou, an NDP MP from Qalyoub, and Farag El-Rawas, an NDP MP from Al-Sayeda Zeinab. El-Rawas is a business tycoon and a close associate of parliamentary speaker Fathi Sorour. In an attempt at damage control, NDP assistant secretary-general and parliamentary whip, Kamal El-Shazli, recently summoned all the draft- dodging NDP MPs to his office, and offered them "a good deal". El-Shazli urged the MPs to submit their resignation instead of allowing themselves to be forcibly removed from parliament by decree. In the latter case, only those candidates who ran in the 2000 parliamentary elections against the draft dodgers will be able to run again to fill the vacant seats. If they were to resign, however, El-Shazli promised the draft dodgers that the NDP would help them nominate their children or relatives to run in a brand new election with an open slate of candidates. Expectations are that most of the draft-dodgers will accept El-Shazli's offer. An NDP insider told Al-Ahram Weekly that El-Shazli was trying to "kill many birds with one stone". For one thing, he was trying to avoid the embarrassment of parliament dramatically kicking out 15 of the NDP's deputies in one go. "The opposition press is sure to seize this opportunity to launch a hostile new campaign against the Assembly with the aim of tarnishing its image in the eyes of public opinion," the NDP insider said. At the same time, the source said, El-Shazli was also trying to reinforce his image as an indispensable member of the party, especially in times of crisis. The opposition, meanwhile, saw El-Shazli's tactics as further evidence of the NDP's constant desire to monopolise parliamentary politics. Amongst the affected MPs are two representing North Egypt (Moragi' El-Ozomi, Alexandria; Salooma Mari', Marsa Matruh), three representing Cairo (Abdu Gaber, Bab Al-Shariya; Mohamed El-Rifaie, Heliopolis; Abdel-Rahman Radi, Rod Al-Farag), six representing the Delta governorates (Hermas Radwan, Daqahliya; Mustafa Shaheen, Menoufiya; Mohamed Zayed, Abdel- Monein Shakl and Salah Ragab, Gharbiya; and Osama El-Sharkawi, Beheira), and four representing Upper Egypt (Adel Ashour, Giza; Ali Riad and Mahmoud Abdel-Ghaffar, Beni Suef; and Abul-Magd Mohamed, Al-Minya).
