Hatem Bagato, head commissioner of the Supreme Constitutional Court, has delayed submitting to a respected legal body a report on the constitutionality of the voting system used to elect the current Parliament, according to state-run news agency MENA.
Other media outlets incorrectly reported that the Supreme Constitutional Court itself would decide on the constitutionality of the voting system within a month. Bagato said the report would be submitted to its internal body, the Commissioners Department, within one month, and then later the court would deliberate over the case.
The Supreme Constitutional Court does not provide details aboutt the final dates of its rulings. Legal experts say the ruling could come anywhere in the range of weeks to years.
The parliamentary vote, hailed as Egypt’s freest elections in six decades, was held under a complex system in which a third of seats were allocated to individuals (who could be members of political parties) and two-thirds to lists designed by political parties.
The Freedom and Justice Party, which is the Muslim Brotherhood’s political arm, and the Salafi-oriented Nour Party won two-thirds of the seats in Parliament’s two houses.
According to MENA, the Commissioners Department has asked the government and the plaintiff in the case to write out their arguments on the constitutionality of the voting system.
The plaintiff in the case, laywer Anwar Sobhy, said that the electoral system did not achieve true representation because it allowed political parties to compete for seats through both the list-based and the single-winner systems. The case argues that the latter should have been left to independent candidates.
After the commissioners deliver their opinion on whether the law is constitutional or not, the court will hear the whole case. If ruled unconstitutional, the Islamist-dominated Parliament will be dissolved and Egypt should conduct new elections.
In the 1980s, the court ruled twice that allocating seats for political parties and denying individuals the right to run for them is unconstitutional since it violates individuals’ right to equal opportunity.
Judge Magdy al-Agaty of the Supreme Administrative Court said in his February ruling that the system violated the constitution.
He referred parts of the election law to the Supreme Constitutional Court for a final judgment.
Last February, an administrative court ruled that the voting system during the elections, which gave Islamists about two-thirds of both houses of Parliament, is unconstitutional.
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
