Ahead of its ninth congress, scheduled for November, the NDP is preparing a raft of controversial new laws, reports Gamal Essam El-Din The ninth congress of the ruling National Democratic Party is scheduled for 4 November. To prepare for the congress, and for the upcoming parliamentary session, the NDP is compiling a new round of controversial legislation. Topping the list is a new anti-terror bill which will replace the 26-year-old emergency laws. Opposition parties have already accused the NDP of seeking to use the new law to curtail personal freedoms and stifle dissent. Moufid Shehab, minister of state for parliamentary and legal affairs, says the government committee, formed a year ago to prepare the new anti-terror legislation, has completed the drafting of 25 articles. These, say Shehab, deal with the definition of a terrorist act and the crime of terrorism, and designate penalties to be imposed on those committing such crimes. Shehab says the law will provide guarantees for individual and civilian freedoms "in line with international human rights charters and the Egyptian constitution". Shehab also indicated that the law will grant citizens the right to file court cases should they feel their freedoms are being abused. The law will not criminalise journalists who conduct interviews with extremists or terrorists or who review books containing extremist ideas. "We are keen not to negatively affect freedom of speech," said Shehab. In general, he argued, the government was aiming to strike a balance between security needs and human rights. Shehab said the new anti-terror act will draw on the experience of other countries, including the United Kingdom, which Shehab visited last week as part of a five-member delegation including prosecutor-general Abdel-Meguid Mahmoud, assistant to the justice minister Sirri Siam, Deputy Chairman of the State Council Mustafa Hanafi, and two deputy ministers of interior, Ahmed Diaaeddin and Ashraf Mohsen. They met several British officials, including the Home Office Minister Tony McNolty, Justice Minister Jack Straw and Minister of State for Middle East Affairs Kim Howells, the official in charge of anti-terrorism affairs at the Foreign Office. Shehab said British officials had briefed him on the UK's anti-terror legislation and other preventive measures taken against terrorism crimes in England. "Our visit aimed to forge cooperation with the UK in the area of fighting terrorism and in legislative and judicial affairs," said Shehab. Shehab denied that he had discussed the possible extradition of Egyptian extremists living in England. Howells paid a two-day visit to Egypt this week, meeting Prime Minister Ahmed Nazif, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit and Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Moussa. Yesterday, Howells held a roundtable discussion with journalists on terrorism and security. The NDP is also seeking to amend the 1956 laws that govern the exercise of political rights. Following a recent meeting of the NDP's Policies Committee, Secretary-General Safwat El-Sherif said the political rights law will be amended to change the election system. The NDP hopes to restructure the system to allow more women and opposition party members to enter parliament. NDP insiders told Al-Ahram Weekly that the system of individual candidacy could be scrapped in favour of a more collective approach. Currently candidates run for election individually, regardless of whether they are independent or affiliated to a political party. That could be changed to a slate system, with proportional representation. Past attempts to introduce a slate system were twice judged unconstitutional in the 1980s, though last March's constitutional amendments have now opened the way to adopting proportional representation. The opposition says the NDP's motive in switching to a slate system is to prevent the Muslim Brotherhood from running in parliamentary elections. In 2005, Brotherhood candidates ran as independents and were able to win 88 seats. Opposition figures say such a switch would discriminate not only against the Muslim Brotherhood but all independents. "This law will prevent all kinds of independent candidates and restrict participation in political life to the NDP and a handful of legal but weak political parties," says Brotherhood MP Ahmed Abu Baraka. Gamal Zahran, an independent MP with leftist leanings, argues that after eliminating judicial supervision of elections the NDP now wants to reframe political life in a way that suits the party. Zahran and Baraka believe that despite this year's constitutional amendments NDP attempt to isolate independents from are still unconstitutional. "They violate Article 40 which states that all citizens have equal public rights and duties," says Abu Baraka. To contain the opposition's fears about the new election system, , chairman of the NDP's Policies Committee, said on 17 July that the ruling party will conduct a dialogue with opposition parties before drafting any new laws. The NDP has also proposed changes to the 1979 laws regulating the performance of local city councils. Mohamed Kamal, NDP secretary- general for indoctrination affairs, said last week that the amendments are necessary to reinforce the powers of local city councils. "This will be achieved by decentralising executive councils and reinforcing the supervisory roles of elected councils," said Kamal. Though the opposition does not object to empowering city councils they question whether or not a slate system will be used in local elections, pointing out that the NDP recently used its majority in parliament to delay city council elections from 2006 to 2008. "During these two years constitutional amendments were passed to give the NDP a licence to impose whatever system it wants," says Zahran. The Muslim Brotherhood has repeatedly claimed that municipal elections were delayed to prevent them from repeating their success in the 2005 parliamentary elections.
