Tahany Al Gebaly: Constitution Shall Represent All Egyptians
Counselor Tahany Al Gebaly, Deputy President of The Supreme Court, criticized the composition of the Constituent Assembly as Islamists will monopolize the writing of the constitution.
Selecting the members the constituent assembly shall be subject to the constitutional rules not the rule of the majority as the constitution shall be based on consensual terms, Al Gebaly affirmed.
Parliamentarians are not entitled to participate in the constituent assembly as the parliament has legislative and monitoring authorities; accordingly they may give themselves absolute authority.
The appeals raised against all parliamentarians will diminish the constitution’s validity if these appeals will be upheld.
Talking about the unconstitutionality of some articles of the parliament and its influence on the Constitution, Counselor said this appeals are pending until now, which leads to a sort of risk on the next constitution due to ignoring all of these important issues, adding that the only loser is the Egyptian citizen who will be the victim of all these errors, assuring that these appeals will surely affect the next constitution, especially if they are proved to be valid. Al Gebaly added that country cannot awaits such decisions for longer time.
About the constituent assembly, she said that the successive withdrawals of non religious representatives destroy the committee’s legitimacy and its credibility for the Egyptian people, leading to its invalidity, adding that committee member should have been appointed from outside the parliament both upper and lower.
Deputy President of The Supreme Court affirmed that there is an increasing fear that the new constitution will be greatly affected by Islam sharia and regulations due to the great percentage of Islamists either from FJP or Al Nour party.
About the economy status amid the new Constitution, Tahany wondered how the new legislations will deal with the Egyptian economic fundamentals and the pursuit of a national economic project to support the country while the assembly is free of economists, and the most important, constitutional experts who were expected to maintain the balance of both power and wealth amid all Egyptian segments and to improve Egyptians social status.
She affirmed that the Constitution’s proposal is a political process which must reflect all Egyptians, their dreams, ambitions and interests. “Every Egyptian should contribute in the new constitution and the future of his country as well as the framework of reconstructing of the upcoming period, so, the assembly should represent all people segments and should reflect all parties’ trends,” said Tahany.
She confirmed that the next Constitution must be presented to the people to be approved as they did not choose the members of the founding committee.
She said that many of current articles can be used in the new constitution affirming that Constitution is based on accumulative amendments adding that the Constitution of 1971 is the most mature.
She pointed out that despite the continuous demanding of cancelling the current constituting assembly what we need now is a meaningful national dialogue and to discuss quietly all points of disagreement.
