Unlike previous years, the 2008/2009 People's Assembly kept making headlines even after the June recess, with MP scandals overshadowing a largely uneventful term. Scandalous skirmishes In October, MP Ahmed Shobair, who is also a sports TV anchor and former goalkeeper of Al-Ahly football team, was stripped of his immunity when lawyer Mortada Mansour, the ex-chairman of rival Al-Zamalek sports club, claimed that he possesses a CD recording of Shobair using expletives in a phone call with alleged Al-Fajr reporter Heba Ghareeb. Shobair's trips to the courthouses and to prosecution offices were accompanied with huge crowds of his fans as well as prominent members of the football league and media personalities. Also in October, MP Mohamed Mandour attacked a police station in his constituency of Deshna in the Upper Egyptian governorate of Qena, assaulting a police officer and damaging public property. PA speaker Fathi Sorour again stripped Mandour of immunity upon the request of Minister of Justice Mamdouh Marei. On the same day Mandour attacked the police station, another MP Haidar Al-Boghdady and trespassed into the premises of a school that was closed down in Al-Gamalia district, flouting a court ruling in favor of the man who owns the land on which the school was built and who had decided to close it down. In retaliation, Al-Boghdady, who represents Al-Gamalia district, violated the court order and broke into the school with a group of parents angered at finding their children suddenly with no school to attend. Though illegal, Al-Boghdady's actions eventually led to reopening the school. Sorour steps in In August, despite the official recess of the PA session, Sorour - who later received the Arab Parliamentarians Union award for best Arab Parliamentarian in October - helped resolve a long dispute between the Ministry of Justice and legal specialists affiliated to it. For over three months, around 300 specialists organized sit-ins in front of the ministry, demanding legal protection, higher salaries and better work conditions. August also witnessed discussions in the PA's health committee regarding the issue of sewages disposal and the use of sewage water to irrigate agricultural land. Amendments and new legislations One of the most talked-about outcomes of the 2009 session was a legislation setting a quota for women's seats in parliament at a minimum of 64. According to the new law, backed by the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP), 32 new districts from different governorates will only accept applications from female candidates in the two up-coming legislative elections of 2010 and 2015. The new law, however, triggered controversy among the public, legal experts and feminists, with some viewing it as a step forward towards increasing female participation in political life, while others saw the idea of positive discrimination as unconstitutional for favoring one gender over the other. The widely discussed amendment to the social insurance law number 79 of 1975 was one of the few laws passed by the PA in 2009. However, the changes only influenced early retirement employees who will be granted a maximum of 80 percent of their would-be salaries had they continued until retirement age, instead of a retirement fee set at a maximum LE 200. Organ transplant Opening the 2009-2010 PA session, was the unexpected passage of the long-disputed organ transplant law that had been in the pipeline for eight years, blocked by a dispute over the definition of death. To the relief of its main advocate, head of the PA's health committee and the Doctors' Syndicate Hamdy El-Sayyed, a law has been finally approved to permit organ donation from recently deceased donors. The draft law's definition of death was finally based on a fatwa (religious edict) by Grand Sheikh of Al-Azhar Mohamed Sayed Tantawy, and approved by the Islamic Research Center, according to El-Sayyed. The new law also penalizes doctors who perform illegal organ transplants, subjecting them to a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison. Hospitals and medical facilities allowing illegal operations will also be fined up to LE 1 million and can be shut down altogether. Egypt comes last among 18 Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, which already have organ transplant laws in place. -Daily News Egypt
