Twenty former members of the dissolved parliament are staging a three-day sit-in before the Supreme Constitutional Court while it reviews lawsuits challenging the dissolution of parliament filed by citizen Anwar Sobhi Darweesh and former MP Mohamed al-Omda, former MP.
Omda told state-owned news agency MENA that the unconstitutionality of individual seats should not have spelled the dissolution of the whole of parliament.
Omda added that the sit-in aims to draw attention to the harm that resulted from dissolving the parliament and thereby hampering the legislative authority from performing its duty while the country was going through hard times. He pointed also to the costs and dangers that may result from re-staging parliamentary elections.
In June, the Supreme Constitutional Court decreed unconstitutionality of the parliamentary elections law and ordered its dissolution. The court then affirmed the ruling once again after President Mohamed Morsy had issued a presidential decree that canceled the court ruling and ordered parliament to be reinstated. Parliament met just once after this decree.
Former MP and Deputy Chief of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party Essam al-Erian called on Morsy to put parliament reinstatement to a public referendum. “Why wouldn’t the president hold referendum on reinstatement of a parliament that was elected by 32 million Egyptians,” he said.
