Profile: Who is Abdel Wahab Abdel Razek, speaker of re-instated Senate?

CAIRO – 18 November 2020: As the re-instated Egyptian Senate started its first session on Sunday, former head of the Supreme Constitutional Court Abdel Wahab Abdel Razek has been elected as the Senate’s head.

Abdel Razek has been chosen for the post after 287 people of the 300-member Senate voted for him.

Prosecutor Abdel Razek was born in 1948 in Upper Egypt’s governorate of Minya. He got his Bachelor’s degree in law in 1969 from Cairo University.

He was appointed in the Accountability State Authority in the early seventies then he served as an assistant public prosecutor. He was appointed as an undersecretary for the Attorney General, and a deputy in the State Council.

In 1987, he was appointed as a prosecutor in the State Council.

He served as an advisor in the Commissioners Authority of the Supreme Constitutional Court. In 1994, he served as the head of the authority and in 2001, he was appointed as the deputy head of the court.

Abdel Razek then managed to serve as the head of the Supreme Constitutional Court between June 2016 and June 2018, succeeding prosecutor Adly Mansour.

Abdel Razek headed the pro-government Future of a Nation political party, the country’s biggest and strongest party currently.

He was reportedly one of the members of the court who witnessed its "historic" siege by the members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood group to prevent from issuing a ruling to dissolve the MB-dominated House in 2013.

Abdel Razek issued in March 2015 a prominent ruling to halt the House of Representatives elections because the electoral district law was invalid.