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| Africa North |
| Beida lower court overturns the Supreme Court ruling on unconstitutionality of HoR |
| 2015-02-07 |
| [Libya Herald] A Libyan lower court in the eastern city of Al-Beida overturned the decision of the Supreme Court in Tripoli ...a confusing city, one end of which is located in Lebanon and the other end of which is the capital of Libya. Its chief distinction is being mentioned in the Marine Hymn... that ruled that the elections of Libya's House of Representatives (HoR) were unconstitutional. The Preliminary Court ruling on Thursday suspended the previous ruling of 6 November 2014 declaring it null and void. One of the Advocates who took the case to court, Amal Bughagis, told Alwatan newspaper that the decision was a landmark in the Libyan political process. Bughagis, said that the decision ended the GNC's tenure, by virtue of a judicial decision, and not a political statement. Bughagis added that there is an earlier ruling by the Supreme Court that ruled that a lower court could suspend a ruling of a higher court, including that of the Supreme Court. In her last comment, Bughagis was answering the question of whether a lower court could overrule a higher court. It will be recalled that Libya's Supreme Court had ruled on 6 November 2015 that the June 2015 House of Representatives elections were unconstitutional. In its ruling it said that the GNC ''February Committee'' set up by the GNC in February 2014 to set up new elections for a body to replace the GNC, was in itself unconstitutional. The ruling in Tripoli was not recognized by the House of Representatives, nor by the international community on the basis that the court sitting in Tripoli may have been coerced. Libya's current ''social contract'', the Transitional Constitutional Declaration of August 2011, drafted during the 2011 Libyan revolution that overthrew the Qadaffy dictatorship, provided for the election of one transition parliamentary body, the GNC, whilst the constitution was being drafted. |
| Posted by:Fred |