Parliament terminates MP’s membership over bankruptcy fraudulence

CAIRO – 25 July 2018: Egypt’s Parliament decided on Tuesday to drop MP Sahar el-Hawary’s membership in Parliament on counts of her indictment of bankruptcy fraud.

Last year, Parliament’s Constitutional and Legislation Affairs Committee received a report that states that Hawary has been handed down a five-year sentence on charges of fraudulent bankruptcy, which goes at odds with the Parliament’s code of morals and internal regulations.

In press remarks on Tuesday, Ali Abdel Aal, Speaker of the Parliament said that the Parliament decided to proceed with measures necessary to terminate Hawary’s membership once it learnt that the Court of Cassation only accepted the MP’s appeal in form and rejected it in merits.

The Parliament is also set to vote on revoking the membership of a group of MPs on accounts of trampling the Parliament’s code of ethics and the internal regulations based on the recommendations of the Parliament’s ethics committee.

According to the Parliament’s spokesperson, MP Salah Abdullah, the decision to strip the Parliamentarians of their memberships should be supported by a 75-percent vote from sitting members.

Speaker of the Parliament Ali Abdel Aal has previously referred some of the Parliament’s members to the Parliament’s ethic committee to probe the violations they committed while in office, including interrupting another MP while given the floor, attempting to disturb the Parliament’s sessions and violating the process of drafting important laws, misusing public funds and insulting the state’s officials and institutions.

He further added that the committee has completed its investigations and prepared a final report that was then submitted to him.

MP Elhamy Agina, known for his contentious statements and remarks, is amongst those endangered parliamentarians. Earlier in 2016, Agina called for having female students subjected to mandatory virginity tests to before admitting to universities.

Along with Agina, a host of members of the Parliamentarian opposition 25-30 coalition also are also included in the parliament’s motion tabled by Aal.

Also, a joint committee formed of different Parliamentarian committees including Defense and National Security, and Constitutional and Legislation Affairs committees are preparing to study a draft law introduced by dozens of Parliament members that suggests involving debtors in community service as an alternative penalty to imprisonment.

According to the draft law, the prison punishment a debtor faces would be replaced with community service, away from the prison, based on the judge’s perspective and opinion whether the defendant is legally defined as a debtor.

The work places, job description, working hours, grants and punishments would be determined by the prime minister or the concerned minister acting on his behalf, with respect to the debtor’s age.