National Dialogue calls for establishing non-discrimination commission in Egypt

CAIRO – 14 May 2023: There was a consensus in the first National Dialogue session on the need to establish a non-discrimination commission in Egypt, said Lawmaker Tariq Radwan, the head of the Human Rights Committee in the House of Representatives.

In comments to Al Hayat Al Youm channel, he added that a new draft law on forming non-discrimination commission was submitted to the Constitutional and Legislative Committee and the Human Rights Committee at the parliament.

The first session of the National Dialogue’s specialized committees kicked off on Sunday with a debate that ran by the Political Rights Practices Committee of the National Dialogue on discrimination issues and the challenges of cooperative work.

The session discussed the file of combating discrimination, shedding light on light on citizens' rights to treatment and housing, in addition to not being subjected to physical or psychological abuse.

Participants called for a review of all laws and legislations related to combating discrimination, including the personal status law and labor laws.

They also called for the adoption of a national program to follow up on all forms of discrimination and raise awareness, work on gender equality, combat gender-based violence, eliminate the centralization of decision-making, and raise awareness in schools of this.

The first session of the National Dialogue kicked off on Sunday at the Cairo Convention Center in Nasr City, Cairo.

Session tackled four files of electoral system, combating discrimination, equality and cooperatives, said head of the Technical Secretariat of the National Dialogue, Counselor Mahmoud Fawzi

‘Debate on electoral system’

The committee held a debate on holding the elections with the closed absolute list system or with the proportional list system.

In the closed list, voters vote for only political parties as a whole. Meanwhile, in the proportional list system, each political party obtains a share of the constituency seats agree with its share of the vote.

A coalition of 42 political parties announced its support for holding the elections with a proportional list system, said lawmaker and deputy of the Industry Committee at the Senate Tayseer Matar on Sunday.

He added that conducting holding the elections with a closed list system suits the Egyptian reality, Youm7 reported.

For his part, former assistant prime minister and professor of constitutional law Abdullah Al-Maghazi voiced his support for the proportional list system, noting that it is possible to combine holding parliamentary elections, whether in the proportional, closed or individual system, Al Shorouk newspaper reported.

Discussions in the national dialogue sessions were very good, especially when it comes to electoral system: said Rapporteur of the Political Rights Committee of the National Dialogue Eng. Mohamed Abdel-Ghany.

“There was a need to discuss the electoral system because the current electoral system did not produce the best system that satisfies the people,” he added in media comments.

He continued that the presence of a real opposition and giving all political factions a space to express themselves are good for the sake of the authority.

General Coordinator of the National Dialogue Diaa Rashwan said that the dialogue will submit all fully-discussed files to the President immediately, revealing that the Senate election law will be discussed next Sunday, on May 21.

Diaa also asked the participants in the dialogue sessions to send proposals to the Technical Secretariat, within a maximum of one week.

“The national dialogue is an important opportunity to develop partisan life, starting with participation,” said Tarek Al Kholi, the committee member and member of the Presidential Pardon Committee.

It is worth mentioning that the sessions of the National Dialogue committees will convene three times a week.

The National Dialogue was launched by President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi during the family iftar event in April 2022.

President Sisi said the dialogue will open its doors for “all political forces without an exclusion” except for the parties that have shown violent behavior or sponsored terrorist attacks,” pledging to attend the final sessions of the dialogue.

The dialogue aims to reach a common ground with regard to priority issues facing the Egyptian society on the political, economic, and social tracks.