CAIRO: Mohamed Omda, an independent Member of Parliament (MP), announced Monday that he is currently working on a law aimed at giving the People's Assembly (PA) the right to call the president to account for his actions. However, independent members of the PA are not optimistic that the law will ever see the light of day. When Omda is done drafting the law, it will be presented to the legislative committee for review. If approved, it will then be proposed to the PA, a process which will take no less than three months. Farid Ismail, PA member affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood, told Daily News Egypt that the law "will certainly not be passed. According to Ismail, the proposed law would give the PA authority over the president and the right to question his behavior and investigate him for any wrongdoings. "However, there is no way that the PA, the majority of whose members are affiliated with the National Democratic Party, will pass this law, Ismail said. Ismail said that recent constitutional changes have allowed the PA to investigate ministers, giving the assembly the power to remove ministers from their posts if found guilty of any charges brought against them. "But practically speaking, the PA can't do anything to ministers either because the majority of the PA's members - who are also NDP members - will vote in favor of those ministers and against any accusation, Ismail added. He said that a great number of investigations and draft laws are proposed by independent members of the PA, including those who belong to the Muslim Brotherhood, but that they are ignored by the NDP-dominated assembly. "Most recently we [independent and Muslim Brotherhood members] have made plenty of comments on the Central Auditing Agency's report about the government's annual financial report. We requested some investigations into certain ministers and governmental agencies but the PA refused to file our investigation requests with the general attorney, Ismail added.
