Cairo – Egypt's Prime Minister 'Sherif Ismail' issued a decision to form a regularization committee for churches and their annexes, stipulated in article (8) of the law regulating the construction and renovation of churches promulgated by the law number (80) of 2016 headed by the Prime Minister. The membership of the Committee comprise the Ministers of Defense and Military Production, of Housing, Utilities and Urban Communities, of the Local Development, of Justice and of Antiquities, of Parliamentary and Legal Affairs, as well as representatives from the General Intelligence Organ, the Administrative Control, the National Security Sector of the Ministry of Interiors, and from the concerned religious community. The Decision text was published in the Official Newspaper number (4-continued) distributed last night. The Committee should seek assistance from those who have experience to attend their meetings without voting right in those meetings. According to the decision, the regularization requests of churches buildings, their annexes, their service buildings or their retreat houses, stipulated In the Articles (9, 10) of the law number 80 of 2016 indicated to, should be submitted to the stipulated Community by the Legal Representative of the owner religious sect. Survey statements of these buildings should be enclosed with those requests. That should be done before September 28th, 2017. Those requests should be recorded in a special register with the numbers and the dates of their arrival. The Committee should not look into any requests arriving after the deadline.The Committee will deal with the referred requests and will verify the availability of the provisions if the request is submitted by a legal representative of the religious sect and if the building requested to be regularized has been built during the issuance period of Law Number 80 of 2016 and it should be ratified by the Syndicate of Engineers. It should also be constructed according to the ratified building requirements. It should adhere to the controls and rules provided by the country defense affairs and the laws organizing the general and private possessions of the State, the new Urban Communities, the Antiquities Protection, the organization of demolishing the non-dilapidated buildings and institutions and the preservation of architectural heritage. The Committee should convene a meeting once every month at least or whenever there is a necessity for that with an invitation from its head. The venue of the meeting should be fixed in the invitation. The convention of the committee will not be considered valid unless its head and the majority of its members attend. The deliberations of the Committee should be confidential and it should issue its recommendations with the consensus of the majority of its attendees. When different recommendations are equal, the recommendations taken by the side of the Committee head should be prioritized.
