Columnist Salama Ahmed Salama was right to describe the current process of the foundation of a constituent assembly to draft Egypt’s new constitution as “a huge mess”. It is, however,
Columnist Salama Ahmed Salama was right to describe the current process of the foundation of a constituent assembly to draft Egypt’s new constitution as “a huge mess”. It is, however, the predictable result of the miserable decision taken by Egypt’s military rulers in an action that bowed to Islamist-dominated public pressure to set the parliamentary elections prior to drafting the Constitution. Sound political logic should have put the constitution first, before parliamentary or presidential elections.
The resultant situation is that Parliament, which is one of the State authorities, is dominating the drafting of the constitution which is the source of all State authorities. No surprise then that the parliamentary majority is seeking dominion.
According to experts and scholars of constitutional law, the ‘created’—in this case Parliament—is exercising controlling power over the ‘creator’—in this case the constitution. In other words, the ‘son’ controls the ‘father’.
There are still among us many who believe the constitution to be an expression of “political majority”. In fact, a constitution is the expression of a social contract in which all citizens have a stake; it should reflect their diversity, pluralism, cultural richness; and their ambitions for the future. Thus the battle for the constituent assembly raises the pivotal question: “Should the constitution be drafted by the majority, or should it be an expression of all the people?”
No matter how much talk there is on the political scene stressing the significance of ‘participation’ over ‘majority’, loud voices transmitting a contrary view abound. Many are thus deeply concerned about a future Egypt as a State based on pluralism, diversity and citizenship rights.
WATANI International
1 April 2012