Shura elections under judicial supervision

By Gamal Essam El-Din
Political circles have welcomed a government decision that next April's mid-term elections to fill 88 Shura Council seats be completely overseen by members of the judiciary. As in the case of the recent parliamentary elections, the decision will entail that the ballot be spread over three stages for the first time in 20 years.
The decision is in compliance with the Supreme Constitutional Court's historical ruling last July that polling and vote-counting stations in general elections be placed completely under the supervision of members of the judiciary. Prime Minister Atef Ebeid, addressing a meeting held last Thursday by the General Secretariat of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), announced that the government was committed to applying the Supreme Constitutional Court's ruling to Shura Council elections.
"We will apply this ruling to Shura Council elections in the same way we applied it to the recent People's Assembly elections. This will cost the government LE80 million, and we will do our best to ensure that these elections are free of the irregularities which accompanied last month's parliamentary elections," Ebeid said.
Ebeid's announcement allayed fears that the Shura Council elections might cause a constitutional crisis because full judicial supervision applied only to one half of the Council's elected members who are contesting the mid-term elections. Some analysts argued that the membership of the other half, who will not run in the elections, should be considered null and void because the previous elections which brought them to the Council were not supervised fully by the judiciary. They suggested fresh elections for all Council seats up for grabs.
However, Kamal El-Shazli, Minster of State for Parliamentary Affairs, said the fears were unjustified because the ruling handed down by the Constitutional Court applied only to parliamentary elections, and not to Shura Council elections. "The ruling was primarily concerned with People's Assembly elections but the government, for transparency reasons, decided to expand the scope of its application to include Shura Council elections," El-Shazli said.
The Shura Council is a consultative "upper house" that has no legislative powers. It was established by the late President Anwar El-Sadat in 1980 to make proposals on modifying some articles of the constitution and debating laws that complement the constitution. The Council also discusses the state's socio-economic development plans and prepares reports on specific national issues.
The Council includes 264 members, two thirds of whom (176) are chosen in secret ballot in general elections, while the remaining one third (88) are appointed by the president. A member's term of office may last up to six years, but one half of the elected (88) and the appointed (44) members are chosen by lot to lose their seats after three years. Others are elected or appointed in their place. Losers are eligible for re-election or reappointment.
The Council's mid-term elections will be held in 67 districts to fill 88 seats, and 44 others will be filled by President Hosni Mubarak. The membership of a group of appointed members will expire next July. They include Tharwat Abaza, the Council's deputy speaker, Ali Lutfi, a former prime minister, and Farag Mohsen, chairman of the Council's Legislative Committee. They are eligible for reappointment by President Mubarak. The Council is currently controlled by the NDP (255 seats), while the remaining nine seats are occupied by representatives of six opposition parties and independents.
In the meantime, a confrontation is heating up between the government and the People's Assembly, on the one hand, and the judicial authority on the other, because of appeals filed against the legality of the membership of a large number of newly-elected deputies. Fathi Ragab, deputy chairman of the Shura Council's Legislative Committee and an NDP adviser, affirmed that the rulings handed down by the Higher Administrative Court before the third and final stage of elections took place should be respected and implemented by the government at once because they were final, regardless of the fact that the disqualified candidates had filed counter-appeals with the Urgent Matters Court.
"As long as the government agreed that elections be supervised fully by the judiciary, it should also concede to the fact that the rulings of the Administrative Court, which is an integral part of the judiciary, are final and should be respected," Ragab said.
"Besides, I think that the rulings of the Urgent Matters Court, which will be handed down in the middle of this month, will be in line with the Administrative Court's rulings. Consequently, it is better for the government to rush the implementation of the Administrative Court's rulings now because it will become very embarrassing for the government to implement them once the rulings of the Urgent Matters Court are handed down."
The rulings of the Administrative Court banned 15 candidates from running in the third stage for various reasons, including the fact that their names were not registered on the voters' lists and the stipulation that they must change their category from "workers" to "professionals" to be eligible for the race.
The confrontation is complicated by the fact that, if the rulings of the Administrative Court are implemented by the government and the Assembly, the number of deputies representing professionals could be larger than those representing workers and farmers.
"The Constitution states that the number of worker and farmer deputies can be larger than the number of professional deputies, but the opposite is not possible because it will be a direct breach of the constitution," Ragab said.
Worse, Jihan El-Halafawi, the woman candidate of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood in Alexandria's Al-Raml district, has filed an appeal with the Higher Administrative Court in an attempt to force the Interior Ministry to organise the district's elections as soon as possible. The elections in the district took place on 18 October, with El-Halafawi and another Brotherhood candidate managing to garner the highest number of votes and qualify for the run-offs. The Interior Ministry, however, decided to cancel the results and organise fresh elections, the date of which has yet to be set, in compliance with a ruling handed down by the Administrative Court.
The Interior Ministry's action was viewed by some as evidence that it used double-standards in implementing the Administrative Court's rulings. El-Halafawi said that the Interior Ministry decided to implement the ruling, although the elections already had taken place. "This happens at a time when the ministry adamantly refuses to implement other rulings by the same court, even if they were handed down before elections," El-Halafawi said.
Related stories:
Taking the poll to the courts 30 Nov. - 6 Dec. 2000
Rank-and-file dissenters 23 - 29 November 2000
Legal nuances 16 - 22 November 2000
The new equation 16 - 22 November 2000
See Elections 2000
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