12 - 18 July 2001
Issue No.542
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 12 - 18 July 2001 Issue No.542 |
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Weighing in the harvest
The People's Assembly ended its first session with questioning the legality of its membership. Gamal Essam El-Din attended
The People's Assembly's final meeting before adjourning for the summer recess saw some stock-taking of the parliamentary session just ended and declarations of a number of views and plans by the assembly's speaker, Fathi Sorour.
Sorour believes a new law is urgently required to regulate the relationship between parliament, on the one hand, and the Supreme Administrative Court and the Court of Cassation, on the other. "It is clear we are in desperate need of a quick and decisive legislative solution to the problem of appeals contesting the validity of membership of parliamentary deputies," Sorour told the house on 4 July. "This legislative solution should also address the problem of appeals contesting the results of [parliamentary] elections. The appeals filed with these two courts [the Administrative Court and the Court of Cassation] are a major concern for the assembly because they cast strong doubts on the legality of the membership of some deputies."
Sorour also suggested that a legislative amendment is needed to prevent candidates, barred by the Administrative Court from running in the elections, from using the legal technicality of filing an appeal with the Urgent Matters Court, instead of the Higher Administrative Court, in order to be able to run.
To save time and reach a quick and final decision on the legality of a candidate's nomination ahead of elections, Sorour suggested that future appeals be filed directly with the Higher Administrative Court.
Following the recent elections, the Higher Administrative Court decided to invalidate the membership of 22 deputies for various reasons, ranging from holding dual nationality to dodging military service.
Sorour's statements were in response to a hostile press campaign that accused parliament of concluding its first session without complying with the Higher Administrative Court's rulings against some of its members. The Court of Cassation -- the country's highest -- threw its weight behind these rulings and asked the assembly to respect them. In a report sent last week to the house, the Court of Cassation said the membership of businessman Rami Lakah should be nullified on the grounds that he has dual nationality and dodged the military service.
The anti-parliament campaign gained momentum after President Hosni Mubarak said the Court of Cassation's decisions supporting court rulings annulling the membership of some deputies should be fully respected by parliament. President Mubarak told Al-Mussawar magazine last week that these rulings should be respected even if they affected a large number of MPs.
Sorour emphasised parliament's commitment to applying the principle of the supremacy of law in accordance with the provisions of the constitution and the legal principles laid down by the Court of Cassation.
Out of a total 950 appeals rejected by the Court of Cassation, the assembly discussed and approved the rejection of 37, Sorour said.
He also claimed the assembly had not been officially informed of any final rulings handed down by the Higher Administrative Court on annulling the membership of any deputy.
Reviewing a long list of what he described as the achievements of parliament's first session, Sorour said they were the fruit of new deputies' keenness to actively participate in the assembly's activities.
In legislative terms, Sorour said that the assembly passed 152 laws during its first session after the election. Twenty-five of them covered socio-economic affairs and 127 dealt with fiscal and budgetary matters. This harvest compares to 159 laws passed in the outgoing assembly's last session.
Although deputies were keen on proposing bills, with the number reaching an unprecedented 66, not a single one was approved, Sorour said.
The assembly's greatest achievement, he said, was the passing of the landmark 56-article mortgage law. "During parliamentary debates of the articles of this law, the assembly took the utmost care to ensure that they primarily serve the interests of limited-income brackets and conform with the rules of Islamic Shari'a," Sorour said.
The mortgage law, however, came under fire from a large number of majority and opposition deputies. Zakaria Azmi, a prominent MP and chief of the presidential staff, said the bill was "submitted in the name of the poor, but aimed at serving the interests of the rich exclusively."
Other laws, such as that of levying the new sales tax, also faced strong opposition for imposing additional financial burdens on the underprivileged. In this connection, many members of the ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) refused to follow the party's line. Some of these members, who had won their seats as independents before rejoining NDP ranks, organised a sit-in to protest the speed at which laws were being passed.
Sorour's assertion that "the bountiful harvest of laws was the result of excellent coordination between the assembly and the government" was met by reservations from opposition deputies. Adel Eid, a prominent MP and lawyer, told Al-Ahram Weekly. "In addition to the fact that the harvest was rather modest, coordination between the assembly and the government was poor, which led to delaying the discussion of urgently needed bills, such as the Unified Labour, Anti-Trust and Chambers of Commerce Bills, until the next session."
In terms of parliament's supervisory role, Sorour said the assembly was highly effective in fighting financial and administrative irregularities in government circles. "This was achieved by giving deputies the right to table 217 questions [to cabinet ministers] and 724 requests for information, in addition to making 515 urgent statements," Sorour said. Furthermore, deputies directed nine parliamentary interpellations to cabinet ministers.
Eid commented that irrespective of the figures cited by Sorour, deputies tried unsuccessfully to use supervisory tools to combat corruption. "A glaring example is Sorour's refusal to approve the opposition's request for forming a fact-finding committee to investigate the accusations directed by MP Kamal Ahmed against the chairman of the Cairo Stock Exchange, Sameh El-Torgoman. President Mubarak's order to refer these accusations to the prosecutor-general showed that the assembly's supervisory tools are ineffective," Eid said.
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