Praise from People's Assembly speaker Fathi Sorour, criticism from opposition MPs and independent analysts. So what happened during the last parliamentary session, Gamal Essam El-Din seeks an answer The People's Assembly concluded its annual parliamentary session last Thursday with speaker Fathi Sorour praising the legislative and supervisory roles it has played during the last seven months. Addressing the assembly on 19 June, Sorour cited meetings that took place "by day and night to debate and endorse laws over several consecutive weeks, the scope of which is unprecedented". Sorour told MPs: "you were keen to exercise supervision over the government's performance and you were able to voice the daily problems and hardships facing ordinary citizens." The assembly, he said, had passed 148 laws compared with 153 in last year's session. Of these, 110 dealt with financial and budgetary matters and 38 covered political and socio-economic issues. Political pundits, opposition and independent MPs, see things differently. They argue that deputies lost any meaningful legislative role a long time ago and the assembly now exists to toe the government line. Some deputies belonging to the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) even argued that many of the laws passed promoting market- economy reforms were a result of pressure applied by the growing influence of businessmen over the party. Sherine Fouad Abdel-Aziz, NDP deputy for the Cairo East district of El-Wayli, noted that the outgoing parliamentary session served the interests of businessmen rather than the majority of citizens. "Businessmen either pressed hard to help pass market-economy laws or toed the government line on controversial issues such as gas sales to Israel," Abdel-Aziz said on Sunday, addressing a seminar organised by the Taz Palace Salon in Sayeda Zeinab on the outcome of the parliamentary session. He emphasised that last year's constitutional amendments did not have any positive effect on the People's Assembly. "They were widely touted by the government as a progressive step but the fact remains that the executive authority is still much more powerful than the legislative or judicial authorities." The Assembly's speaker Fathi Sorour, however, strongly denied that businessmen imposed their agenda on parliament. "There is much exaggeration about this point because market-economy laws reflect the agenda of the government's new economic reforms rather than the agenda of businessmen," said Sorour. Hamdin Sabahi, an independent MP with Nasserist leanings, points out that two thirds of laws passed in the recent session were approved in the last six weeks, with 14 rammed through the assembly in the two days preceding the summer recess. "It has now become a tradition that the government surprises the assembly with last-minute laws so as to curtail debate on politically or economically sensitive legislation." Sabahi agrees that businessmen now dominate parliamentary business. He claimed that one businessman, the NDP's secretary for Organisational Affairs and Chairman of the assembly's Budget Committee Ahmed Ezz, has been able to impose his will not only on NDP MPs and the assembly as a whole but on the government." Ezz intervened just two days ahead of the session's end to change a government law aimed at toughening penalties on monopolistic practices. The changes on which he insisted make it more difficult for citizens to provide the Competition Protection Agency (CPA) with information on such practices. Ezz justified the changes by arguing that they were necessary to protect against malicious reports. Mona Yassin, chair of the CPA, says Ezz's changes have rendered the anti-trust law "meaningless". Amr Hashem Rabie, a political analyst with Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies, says that the sudden flood of laws that now come with the end of each parliamentary session reveal the government's political and economic priorities. "It refused to revoke the 27-year-old emergency law and fell far short of improving the democratic climate in terms of amending laws on NGOs, professional syndicates and political parties." Responding to critics Sorour told Al-Ahram Weekly that "the assembly has never been a machine for rubber-stamping laws and in the latest session initiated changes to controversial bills on children's rights, the Bar Association, the property tax and new traffic regulations". He dismissed charges that the legislative agenda aimed to serve the interests of businessmen. "These laws all fall in line with the state's strategy of improving the investment climate, closing the budget deficit and raising the salaries of civil servants." Sorour said the change introduced by Ezz was necessary in order to cushion industrialists and producers against malicious complaints. "Anyway, the Industry and Trade Ministry has the right to ask parliament to change the anti-trust law in next sessions to reflect new changes on the market. Sorour accused opposition and independent newspapers of painting a negative picture about parliament and launching a war against businessmen, especially Ezz. He also argued that it is normal in all world parliaments that the government submit last minute laws. "And even this does not mean that these laws pass without enough discussion," said Sorour, referring to "the fact that the laws on property tax, child righs and Bar Association were heavily amended upon proposals from MPs." Sorour insists that the assembly continues to serve as an objective, unbiased watchdog of government actions. MPs, he says, submitted as many as 220 questions and an unprecedented 2,237 requests for information from government ministers, compared with 1,876 in the 2006/2007 session. He added that 28 interpellations -- questions that must be answered -- were directed at cabinet ministers. Opposition and independent MPs accuse Sorour of manipulating supervisory tools in order to cushion the government against serious criticism. They also say that the decision, taken after intense pressure from Ezz, to bar outspoken leftist MP Saad Abboud from parliamentary debates for four months, had undermined parliament's role as a watchdog. Opposition MPs expressed their support for Abboud by announcing that they would refrain from directing interpellations as long as the ban on Abboud remained in force. Sorour hailed the assembly's achievement, pointing to the decision to form a fact- finding committee on E Agrium's proposed fertiliser plant in Damietta. "The committee gathered a lot of information about the project and forced the government to relocate it to another area because of its potential impact on the environment in Damietta," said Sorour. Other MPs, however, say the assembly was not able to force the government to unveil information about gas sales to Israel, privatisation proceeds and sales of large plots of government land to businessmen at huge discounts.
