The legislative committee of the Shura Council, the upper house of parliament which currently holds legislative powers, approved on Tuesday the reservations of the High Constitutional Court (HCC) on a draft law regulating political rights. The court had found several of the articles of the law unconstitutional, including a provision that members of the police and the armed forces are not given the right to vote. The court also objected to the fact that the Supreme Electoral Commission, the body tasked with supervising elections, is not given the right to monitor the use of private media in election campaigning. The legislative and constitutional affairs committee of the Shura Council had agreed last week to grant Egyptian military and police personnel the right to vote in elections by July 2020. Deputy defence minister for Legal Affairs Major Mamdouh Shahin had asked committee members to postpone including army and police personnel in upcoming election voter lists, raising doubts about whether the state could manage the upcoming parliamentary elections without the security services of the army, if army personnel were eligible to vote.
