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| Africa North | |||
| Egyptian parliament starts debating new constitution | |||
| 2012-03-04 | |||
CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian lawmakers held a heated debate on Saturday as they began selecting 100 people tasked with writing a new constitution. The document will define the balance of power between the army-backed executive and parliament, which wants to curb broad presidential powers and may become the focus of confrontations over the role of Islam in Egyptian laws and society.
"The most important step to building democratic institutions is what we are about to do here today," Saad al-Katatni, the speaker of the lower house of parliament, said at the start of a joint session between the two houses. "The path of our revolution was not paved with flowers but with sacrifices," he said after asking lawmakers to read a verse of the Quran in honor of the victims of the uprising. As members of parliament in the Arab world's most populous state and long-time U.S. ally outlined their visions for the make-up of the body, early signs of disagreement were evident. The Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), which controls most seats in both houses of parliament combined, wants 40 members of the constituent assembly to be from parliament and the remaining 60 to include legal and constitutional experts and members of unions.
Both the liberals and the Brotherhood's Salafi rivals, which calls for a strict application of Islamic law, worry the FJP will have more say in the drafting of the new constitution. To counter that risk, the Salafi al-Nour Party wants more lawmakers in the assembly than advocated by the FJP. "We see that those in a better position to be in the assembly should be the elected members of parliament. They should have a priority over others," said Nour's Moustafa Khalifa. The FJP insists it wants an assembly that can represent all parties, and a constitution that can safeguard Egypt's freedoms. "We want an assembly that represents all of Egypt's people and we will cooperate with everyone from inside parliament and outside to do so," said Hussein Ibrahim, an FJP lawmaker. Some lawmakers kicking off the process on Saturday stressed that expertise, rather than party affiliation, should be the crucial factor when selecting members of the assembly. "Picking the constituent assembly should be governed by expertise and not numbers, it should be about caring for substance and not appearances," Essam Sultan, a lawmaker with the moderate Islamist Wasat party, told parliament.
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| Posted by:Steve White |
| #3 BernardZ, I think you just wrote their whole constitution. |
| Posted by: Rambler in Virginia 2012-03-04 16:18 |
| #2 You've done this before, haven't you... |
| Posted by: Steve White 2012-03-04 11:15 |
| #1 I can start them off ARTICLE 1 Islam is the official religion in Egypt. The principles of Islamic ShariÂ’a shall be the main source of legislation. |
| Posted by: BernardZ 2012-03-04 07:30 |