CAIRO: Egypt's Shura Council (upper house of the parliament), which temporarily holds the legislative authority, approved on Saturday the amendments to the parliamentary law of elections. Chairman of the Council, Ahmed Fahmy, declared referring the law to the Constitutional Court in order to consider the constitutionality of its articles, in accordance with Article 177 of the constitution. The council also approved that each electoral list must include at least one female candidate. However, it declined the earlier proposal which requires female candidates to be in the first half of the list. Article 19 stipulates that the number of candidates in each list is equal to two-thirds of the seats in the constituency, and that half of the representatives are workers and farmers. The Salifi Nour Party demanded deliberations as it opposed giving women an advanced status in electoral lists. The Shura Council rejected several proposals by parliament representatives, it also rejected a proposal for having at least one Coptic candidate in each list, reported the Middle East News Agency. Assistant Attorney Adviser to the Minister of Justice, Omar Sharif, said that the law stipulates that an individual member of the parliament must get half plus one of the votes per circuit. Bikyanews.com
