Egypt: Court rules legislature illegally elected
Supreme Court orders legislature, constitutional panel dissolved when lower chamber is elected or early 2014
An Egyptian court ruled Sunday that the nation's Islamist-dominated legislature and constitutional panel were illegally elected.
The ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court also said that the legislature's upper house, the only one currently sitting, must be dissolved when parliament's lower chamber is elected later this year or early in
2014.
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The same court ruled to dissolve parliament's lower chamber in June, a move that led to the promotion of the toothless upper chamber, the Shura Council, to becoming a law-making house.
Woman voting in Egypt (Photo: AP)
It was not immediately clear whether the ruling on the 100-member constitutional panel would cancel the charter it drafted. The constitution was adopted in a nationwide vote in December.
But even if it does not, the ruling will question the legitimacy of the disputed charter pushed through by allies of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi.
Morsi's Islamist backers say the constitution is vital for the transition to democracy, nearly two years after the overthrow of autocrat Hosni Mubarak in an uprising. It will provide stability needed to help a fragile economy, they say.
But the opposition accuses Morsi of pushing through a text that favors Islamists and ignores the rights of Christians, who make up about 10% of the population, as well as women. They say it is a recipe for further unrest.
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