Cairo Appeal Court for Urgent Matters ruled Monday that leading members of deposed president Hosni Mubarak's political party can stand for parliament. The verdict overturns an earlier ruling, issued in May, which banned leading members of the now defunct National Democratic Party (NDP) from running in presidential, parliamentary and municipal council elections. The appeal court said the Cairo Court for Urgent Matters did not have jurisdiction to make the original ruling, which should have been made by the administrative court. Judges also said the plaintiff, lawyer Tahany Ibrahim, had not presented substantial evidence to prove corruption by leading members of the NDP. Further investigations should be carried out into the accusations, but this is not in the jurisdiction of the Court for Urgent Matters, the judges added. The 2012 constitution prohibited members of the NDP during the last ten years of Mubarak's rule from running in elections. The constitutional committee formed following the ouster of Islamist president Mohamed Morsi decided against an article that banned members of a particular group from standing for election. Egypt is scheduled to have parliamentary elections before the end of the year as part of a political roadmap imposed following Morsi's ouster. Critics of the parliamentary law, passed in early June by former interim president Adly Mansour, say the law's individual candidacy system will allow Mubarak regime figures to dominate the parliament. Out of 567 seats in the upcoming parliament, 420 will be elected via the individual candidacy system, while 120 seats will be reserved for party lists. Source: Ahram Online
