The State Council's legal opinions department has not received any request to legally interpret a court verdict that dissolved the People’s Assembly earlier this month, according to a senior State Council judge.
Judge Ahmed al-Fiqqi told Al-Masry Al-Youm that his department hasn't received a request from former People’s Assembly speaker Saad al-Katatny asking for a legal opinion on the Supreme Constitutional Court’s verdict that deemed a third of the assembly seats unconstitutional.
The court had ruled that some articles of the parliamentary elections law that allowed party candidates to vie for seats allocated to independent candidates are unconstitutional because they violate the principle of equal opportunity.
The court said that, consequently, the whole formation of the People’s Assembly was unconstitutional.
Fiqqi said the ruling was made by the country’s top judicial body and therefore cannot be challenged before any other court.
He said his department cannot decide on its ability to consider the issue before receiving and reviewing an official letter. He said the ruling military council’s enforcement of the court verdict was an executive measure with no legal dimensions that can be relied upon.
But judicial sources told Al-Masry Al-Youm that Katatny preferred another way to challenge the Supreme Constitutional Court verdict, by filing a complaint against the decision by the ruling military to dissolve the People’s Assembly.
The court ruling has caused a legal dilemma because the court may only rule on whether legislation is constitutional, but does not have the authority to dissolve Parliament.
The president has the right to dissolve Parliament under the 1971 Constitution. But the Constitutional Declaration of March 2011, which has governed the interim period after Hosni Mubarak’s ouster, does not state who can dissolve Parliament.
Other former MPs, such as the Wasat Party’s Essam Sultan and lawyer Nizar Ghorab, joined Katatny in filing the complaint.
The petitioners challenged the Supreme Constitutional Court’s jurisdiction and the constitutionality of the ruling military council’s decision to dissolve Parliament.
A circuit of the Administrative Court said that on Tuesday it would start to investigate the case that challenges the constitutional court’s verdict on the People’s Assembly.
