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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 January 2000 Issue No. 464 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 13 - 19 January 2000 Issue No. 464
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Heritage Special Books Profile Travel Sports People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons Letters Matters of definition
By Gamal Essam El-DinCalls made in the Shura Council two weeks ago to revise the definition "workers" and "farmers" ahead of upcoming parliamentary elections have been met with trepidation in labour circles. A statement released by the General Federation of Trade Unions (GFTU) warned against any attempt to revise the two definitions without first consulting with official labour organisations.
According to the statement, the constitution states that half the seats in parliament be reserved for representatives of workers and farmers. The other half is left to representatives of free professions or fi'at. The constitution, however, left the definition of workers and farmers to a 1972 law which regulates the performance of the People's Assembly. The GFTU statement said that if the need arises to revise the two terms, it should be done in consultation with the representatives of workers and farmers via their official organisations. The recent calls in parliamentary circles to revise the terminology have caused an uproar in labour groups, the statement said. Such groups fear that discussions will be confined to parliamentary circles and political parties. "We warn that the exclusion of the GFTU from these discussions can cause major disruptions in labour circles," the statement warned.
The GFTU's statement was clearly in response to a recent announcement by Minister of State for Parliamentary Affairs Kamal El-Shazli that a bill will be submitted to the People's Assembly revising the definition of workers and farmers. El-Shazli's announcement was made in the course of recent debates in the Shura Council -- an upper house without legislative powers -- over a report on President Hosni Mubarak's inaugural speech delivered at the opening of the new parliamentary session in November. According to the report, the definitions of workers and farmers used are no longer acceptable because parliamentary representation in recent years has failed to portray the two groups accurately.
Fathi Sorour, speaker of the People's Assembly, said there were serious endeavours to amend the meaning of the words workers and farmers. "Representing workers and farmers in parliament is a constitutional principle that should be respected," Sorour said. "However, all should realise that the State Council has recently contested the definition of these categories before the Supreme Constitutional Court. Thus there is a pressing need to revise this definition in order to avoid the possibility that it may be ruled unconstitutional by the court," Sorour added.
According to Law 38 of 1972 which regulates the performance of the People's Assembly, a farmer is a person who entirely depends on land cultivation as his principal and exclusive source of income. A farmer, the law stipulates, should be a resident of the provinces and he, along with his wife and children, should not possess or rent out more than 10 feddans of land.
The same law stipulates that a worker is a person who performs handicraft or intellectual work and depends entirely on such trade for his income. The individual in question should not be a member of a professional syndicate or listed in the Register of Commercial Activities. He should not have a university education certificate. As for members of trade unions, they will be automatically considered as workers.
GFTU officials argue that the first paragraph in the definition of each category should be retained but the rest should be revamped.
Several political observers also argue that the definitions no longer apply to many representatives of workers and farmers in parliament. A case in point is Fathi El-Said El-Biali, a worker representative in parliament for the Delta governorate of Daqahliya. Ahmed Harak, GFTU's deputy chairman, has filed a memorandum with the State Council, arguing that although El-Biali currently acts as a worker representative in parliament, he is not really so. "El-Biali is one of the big businessmen in Daqahliya," according to Harak. "He is involved in many commercial activities and owns more than 10 feddans. As such, he should not be considered a worker representative any longer. In other words, the definition, according to which he contested parliamentary elections, no longer applies to him."
El-Biali's case is not unique. More than 150 MPs, accounting for 33 per cent of parliament's deputies, were elected as worker representatives although in actual fact they are big business tycoons, Harak said. They include Mohamed Sadek Okasha, a deputy for the Giza district of Al-Saff, who was sentenced last month by the Cairo Criminal Court to one year in jail with hard labour for submitting false documents in an attempt to prove he was the proprietor of a hotel in Giza. Okasha is a top tourism entrepreneur but, in parliament, he is a workers' representative.
Harak said his memorandum was carefully studied by the State Council which eventually decided to refer it to the Supreme Constitutional Court. A memo prepared by the State Council recommended that the terms workers and farmers should be urgently revised, ahead of the next parliamentary elections, to ensure that MPs in the coming parliament are true representatives of the two categories.
GFTU fears have been further fuelled by the attempts of several MPs to introduce modifications to the 1972 law. In this respect, three draft laws were submitted by Ayman Nour, a Wafdist deputy, Abdel-Moneim El-Oleimi, an independent MP, and Amin Hamad, a deputy of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Nour told Al-Ahram Weekly that the constitutional stipulation that a half of parliament's seats be reserved for representatives of workers and farmers should be scrapped. "This system was introduced by President [Gamal] Abdel-Nasser in 1964 to give political power to the categories which used to support the socialist principles of the 1952 revolution," Nour said. "This should be scrapped because Egypt has switched to a full-fledged free market. Should it be retained, it must be revised to reflect new conditions."
