Mohamed ELBaradei, former Egyptian vice president for foreign affairs and former Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency has criticized the recent constitutional amendments passed by Egypt’s House of Representatives, describing them as “null”, CNN reported.
“The constitutional amendments are null, whether it is rejected as it should be or approved, because it undermines the most important principles of constitutional legitimacy, such as the separation of powers and the transfer of power,” he said in a tweet on his official Twitter account.
“There are constitutional principles of a peremptory that can not be put to referenda or ‘whitewashed’ .. Is it permissible, for example, to hold a referendum on the permissibility of slavery or racial discrimination?!”
Egypt’s House of Representatives approved on Thursday the constitutional amendments submitted by the request of 155 members, which is more than one-fifth of members of the parliament.
Al-Ahram portal website said 485 MPs approved a request on amending some Constitution articles, upon which the request was referred to Legislative and Constitutional Committee of the House of Representatives for study, with a report to be submitted within 60 days.
The approval has sparked widespread controversy in Egypt.
Parliament member Haitham al-Hariri criticized the suggested amendments, saying it would violate the Constitution and would not be in line with the objectives of the January 25 revolution that overthrew former President Hosni Mubarak and the June 30 revolution that overthrew former President Mohamed Morsi.
Amr Moussa, the former Secretary General of the Arab League, said in a series of previous tweets on his Twitter account that there is a state of “anticipation and uncertainty” because of what he called “ambiguity” surrounding the amendments submitted by five members of the House of Representatives on some provisions of Egypt’s Constitution.
