The judiciary has doubts about the legitimacy of the new People's Assembly, reports Mona El-Nahhas Just a day before the parliamentary re-runs, the Supreme Administrative Court warned that the next parliament could be null and void after the Higher Election Commission (HEC) deliberately ignored rulings passed by the administrative judiciary regarding the elections. Ahead of the polls, the first of which was held on 28 November, administrative courts ordered a halt to the elections in dozens of constituencies across Egypt. The reason was the non-implementation of previous court rulings obliging the HEC -- a high- ranking judicial body authorised by law to supervise the electoral process -- to add the names of more than 300 candidates who were excluded from running in the polls, to the final lists of nominees. Placing legal restrictions on the implementation of a large number of rulings passed in favour of excluded candidates, judge Sameh El-Kashef, HEC spokesman, argued that several appeals were filed in civil courts to contest the rulings, a step which requires an immediate halt in their implementation. However, legal experts replied that as long as they were filed in civil courts, the appeals had no legal bearing on the implementation of rulings. Appeals suspending the implementation of administrative court rulings are filed in the Supreme Administrative Court. In what was viewed by some as a flagrant challenge to judiciary rulings, elections were staged in these constituencies after the HEC, with the majority of the votes of its seven-judge members, decided not to heed the rulings and go ahead with the polls as was planned. In fact, since the announcement of the election results late last week, Egypt's administrative courts have been passing rulings which annulled results at all constituencies which allegedly violated the proceedings. The Supreme Administrative Court called for immediate implementation of all the rulings which have been recently passed by the administrative judiciary regarding the annulment of polls at certain constituencies. The court stressed that the non- implementation of such rulings will deprive the next parliament of legitimacy. According to legal experts, the call for re-elections at all such constituencies is the only possible option available before the government to avoid entering into a legal dispute of having an illegitimate parliament. "Otherwise, the president should intervene by means of the power granted to him by the constitution and order a dissolution of the parliament," said Mohamed Merghani, professor of constitutional law at Ain Shams University. In an article published on Monday in the independent daily Al-Masry Al-Yom prominent legal expert Yehia El-Gamal asked who the real beneficiary of the recent events was. "Is it the ruling NDP or an external conspiracy which aims at undermining legitimacy and sovereignty of law in Egypt?" In previous elections marred by electoral fraud, the People's Assembly speaker usually cited the legal principle that states parliament has unlimited sovereignty over its decisions to reject any court rulings contesting the legitimacy of its formation. However, as the Supreme Administrative Court clarified in its ruling, the right of the People's Assembly to decide whether the membership of any of its members is valid depends on the way the elections are run. In other words, if the elections are held in violation of the law, the right of the People's Assembly is forfeited, after which the case goes to the Supreme Administrative Court. Regardless of whether there will be re-elections at constituencies cited as having broken the law, the ruling is being viewed as embarrassing the government which has insisted the polls were exemplary. A few hours before the Supreme Administrative Court ruling was passed, Secretary-General of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) Safwat El-Sherif told the press that, "the polls were lent legitimacy by the will of the voters and by an electoral system clearly defined by the law." Mohamed Kamal, secretary of the NDP's training and indoctrination, said appeals and rulings are something common in all parliamentary elections, including the current one.
