Parliament shoots down gov’t draft limiting judicial supervision of elections

CAIRO – 26 April 2017: The Egyptian parliament has rejected a draft by the government to amend a law regarding judicial oversight of elections. Earlier in April, the parliament referred Article 34 of the National Electoral Law to the Legislative Committee for deliberation after a dispute over the draft changes.

The Legislative Committee of the Egyptian House of Representatives rejected Wednesday the government's proposed draft of Article 34; 22 voted against the draft while 14 voted in favor and only one abstained. MP Mohammed Medina called the rejection of the draft “a victory for the legislative committee.”

“The government wanted judicial oversight of elections to be optional, but this is unconstitutional,” parliamentarian Dr. Ihab El Khouly, a member of the Legislative Committee, told Egypt Today by phone. Khould voted against the government’s draft.

“The whole electoral process, voting, counting and all procedures, should be under judicial oversight, which is why we voted no,” he said. “If the draft had passed, supervision of elections could have been in the hands of regular employees of the government and supervision by judges would have been optional.”

The text submitted to parliament by the government on April 5 was as follows:

"The polling and counting shall be carried out under full judicial supervision in referendums and elections which shall be held within the ten years following the [approval] of the constitution, which will end on the 17th of January 2024. The [Electoral] Commission may seek the assistance of members of judicial bodies after the end of this period."

The members of the committee insisted on continuing judicial supervision of Egyptian elections without allowing for supervision to end after a specified period of time.

The Legislative Committee voted to uphold the text as is. The current law reads as follows: "The polling and counting in elections shall be conducted under full judicial supervision by members of the judicial bodies in all stages during the electoral process until the final declaration of the results."