A number of politicians and constitutional and legal experts expressed their anger at recent statements by Speaker of the Parliament Saad al-Katatni in which he said that: “No authority whatsoever is entitled to dissolve the parliament, even if by a judicial ruling”
A number of politicians and constitutional and legal experts expressed their anger at recent statements by Speaker of the Parliament Saad al-Katatni in which he said that: “No authority whatsoever is entitled to dissolve the parliament, even if by a judicial ruling”.
On the Tahrir Square Group Facebook page several experts explained that the Constitutional Declaration of March 2011 stipulates that the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) may rule to dissolve Parliament, in which case the Military Council, in its capacity as acting president, should move to implement the ruling.
Katatni##s statement was branded, on the Facebook page, as an indication that the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), of which Katani is member and whose political arm the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) possesses an overwhelming majority in Parliament,”governs by might not by law”.
Constitutional expert Ibrahim Darwish stressed that Katatni##s statement is incorrect. “If it is proved that the parliamentary elections were conducted according to a law that was based on an erroneous legal foundation,” Darwish said, “the parliamentary elections would be invalidated and Parliament would accordingly have to be dissolved.”
Khaled Abu-Bakr, member of the international lawyers union, agreed with Darwish, and said that civil society alone is capable of securing that the law should be respected and implemented.
The dabate comes in the wake of news leaked last week to the effect that the State legal experts authority has issued a report that pronounces the parliamentary elections which brought in the current parliament non-legitimate. This report has to be the basis upon which any court would base its ruling on the legitimacy of the elections. Several cases contesting this legitimacy are now being seen by courts in Cairo; the first ruling is expected on 6 May.
Watani International
29 April 2012