Court rulings overturn legal challenges to the holding of presidential elections as called for by the Presidential Elections Commission, while judges lash a proposed parliamentary law regulating the formation and work of the Constitutional Court, Mona El-Nahhas reports The Higher Administrative Court on Saturday annulled a first-degree court ruling ordering a halt to the 23-24 May presidential polls. On the same day the court also annulled an 8 May ruling that would have excluded Ahmed Shafik as a presidential candidate. The first-degree ruling passed on 9 May by Banha Administrative Court had provoked a heated legal dispute. The court based its judgement nullifying the presidential poll on the argument that in calling for presidential elections the Presidential Elections Commission (PEC) had exceeded its mandate. An election, ruled the Banha court, could only be called for by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) which, under the 2011 constitutional declaration, had assumed presidential prerogatives. Some legal experts argued in favour of the Banha ruling, insisting that the only way out of the legal impasse was for SCAF to call elections. Others pointed out that under the constitutional declaration PEC had been empowered to supervise the entire election process. Reformist judge Zakaria Abdel-Aziz, while conceding that PEC had effectively usurped SCAF's right to call the poll, pointed out that Article 28 of the Constitutional Declaration placed all PEC decisions beyond appeal. The Higher Administrative Court's overturning of the first-degree ruling which had cancelled PEC's decree referring the "political isolation" law to the Supreme Constitutional Court confirmed PEC's status as a judicial rather than administrative body. On 26 April the PEC had referred changes to the law on the exercise of political rights to the Supreme Constitutional Court after presidential candidate Shafik contested its constitutionality. The changes, endorsed by SCAF on 24 April, would have excluded Shafik from the presidential race. On 25 April PEC had appeared willing to endorse its provisions and exclude Shafik, appointed as prime minister during the dying days of the Mubarak regime, from the final list of presidential candidates. Within 24 hours, though, Shafik was back and the law banning remnants of the former regime from nomination for any top state post had been referred to the Constitutional Court. MP Essam Sultan filed a lawsuit before the Administrative Court arguing that PEC had exceeded its remit as an administrative committee by referring the law to the Supreme Constitutional Court. The annulment of the PEC decree on 8 May was interpreted as an attempt to remove Shafik from the presidential race. The ruling had attempted to reinforce the notion that PEC, though its membership is restricted to judges, should function as an administrative rather than judicial committee, much in the manner of the Supreme Judicial Council. The court had also noted that Article 28 of the Constitutional Declaration should place only PEC's administrative decrees beyond appeal since otherwise "PEC will turn into a legendary committee with unlimited capacities". The State Cases Authority and Shafik's legal representative, Shawqi El-Sayed, both contested the first-degree ruling before the Higher Administrative Court, insisting that all PEC decrees were final. Meantime, a fresh problem has cropped up in the Constitutional Court in the wake of a new draft law which reportedly will regulate the formation and work of the court and which received preliminary approval from the parliament's proposals committee on Tuesday. As the Weekly went to print, the Constitutional Court was holding an emergency general assembly to reply to what it described as the parliament's attempt to interfere in its work and marginalise its ability to control legislation.
