Const. Court’s final ruling on Tiran, Sanafir case postponed

CAIRO - 13 January 2018: The ruling on whether the transfer of the Red Sea islands of Tiran and Sanafir to Saudi Arabia will be void or approved by the Supreme Constitutional Court has been postponed until March 3.

In June, the Commissioners Authority of the Supreme Constitutional Court issued a report stating that both Council Courts (the Administrative and Supreme Administrative) and the State of Commissioners, represented by the government, took different approaches while coming up with their respective rulings, and therefore both rulings are proven to be legally unsound.

In April, the Cairo Court of Urgent Matters ruled that the judicial decision to keep Egyptian sovereignty over the two islands was “null and void.” Parliament followed suit and asserted Saudi Arabia’s sovereignty over the Red Sea islands.

During Saudi King Salman bin Abdel-Aziz's 2016 visit to Egypt, several political and economic agreements were signed, the most important of which ceded Egyptian sovereignty over the strategic islands to Saudi Arabia.