Doaa El-Bey heard arguments on the need for the Shura Council The low turnout in the elections of the Shura Council together with the controversy over the role it can play in parliamentary life at present were issues that prompted the AUC School of Global Affairs and Public Policies (GAPP) to hold a panel discussion. The question was whether the Shura Council should be reformed or abolished altogether and if it is needed, should we re-invent the wheel or look at existing models of democratic two-house parliaments. The seminar which adopted a comparative approach to the Upper House of parliament, or the Shura Council, was called "Pros and cons of two houses of parliament: comparative models and the Egyptian experience". Speakers agreed that the bicameral system suits Egypt better especially now when the country is trying to establish genuine democracy in the post- revolution era. However, they emphasised that the shape and authorities of both houses should be defined and should balance each other. Shawqi El-Sayed, a law professor at Cairo University and a constitutional expert, pointed to the importance of the issue at a time when the country is drafting a new constitution because the authorities of both houses of parliament must be clearly and accurately penned in it. El-Sayed expressed his wish that "we have a Shura Council in the new constitution with well-identified legislative powers, in addition to outlining the criteria according to which the appointed members of the council would be selected. The Shura Council represents the "steering wheel going in the opposite direction". The presence of two houses, El-Sayed said, deepens the democratic practice, improves legislative life and increases the supervision of the executive authority. However, the second house should be different in the number of members, their age, election system and tasks so that the two houses would complement and balance each other. El-Sayed spoke about the presence of two houses in many states including the US, UK, France, Canada, Jordan, and Afghanistan as proof of his argument. "Parliamentary life in Egypt which started from the age of Mohamed Ali in 1824 had always adopted the two-house parliament system except from mid- 1950 to 1980. Manar El-Shorbagui, a political science professor at AUC, agreed with El-Sayed that the shape of the parliament was a very important issue "at a time when we are drafting a new constitution." However, El-Shorbagui expressed concern that the present political powers are engaged in political polarisation rather than discussing issues that have a direct impact on the future of the country, namely "the nature of the political system in Egypt in the future, whether we need one or two houses of parliament, what would be the authorities of the president, should the people choose his vice president or leave him to impose him on the people. That atmosphere is not conducive to a good constitution." Regarding whether we should re- invent the wheel, or follow existing systems, El-Shorbagui said that it is not a choice between two options. Egypt, which has long parliamentary experience, does not need to re-invent a new system. "We just need to study our past experience, understand the lessons learnt from that experience and come up with a system that suits our country." Cloning or Xeroxing other people's experience would not suit us, El-Shorbagui added. "After all, any constitution is based on détente between the various political powers in a society. Without that détente, the constitution would fall and no single power in society will be able to protect it. In the meantime, copying a constitution from another society would be a political risk." El-Shorbagui pointed to the US experience "because it is a clear-cut example of how a constitution should emerge from and reflect the political balance in society in which it is issued. One of the balances that engaged experts who gathered to write the US constitution was the hegemony of the highly populated states on ones less populated. As a result, they adopted a bicameral system in which the number of delegates in the lower house or the congress is different according to the population in every state while every state would be strictly represented by two delegates in the upper house or the senate. "That great compromise -- as the Americans call it -- created two houses that have different representation, and work together in legislating and monitoring the executive authority. Meanwhile, it protected the smaller states from the hegemony of the more populated states." Gianluca Parolin, a professor of comparative law at AUC, said that the second chamber of parliament has two fundamental functions: to provide limits to the power of the first chamber and to compensate for the shortcomings in presentation in it, especially of monitories and marginalised groups. Parolin noted that the two-chamber system is used in some 200 countries and has different models that go back to its different functions. "Thus, we should decide on the function needed from the second chamber and devise it accordingly." The fact that the second chamber in Egypt was used by the previous regime, Parolin added, explains the low turnout in the election of the present council. "If we have a second chamber, it should be clear that it will assume a different constitutional role. "But when a voter sees he is voting for the same system with the same power, he will vote for only one house. That's what happened in this year's parliamentary elections when people flocked to vote for the People's Assembly but did not turn out to vote for the Shura Council. To them the second chamber is duplication and a waste of money." El-Shorbagui added that people assess the Shura Council according to what it offered in the past. "They did not vote for its members because they simply do not want to reproduce what was already there. Public opinion judges according to a catastrophic previous experience." Ibrahim Awad, a professor of practice in public policy at GAPP and the panel's speaker, said people's reluctance to vote for a second house was understandable because of past experiences. "It will take time for people to regain confidence in the Shura Council." Awad suggested that changing the council's name would speed up the return of confidence.
