Parliament of Egypt Passed Draft of the New Constitution

The Parliament of Egypt passed draft of their new constitution in which the duties, responsibilities and roles of the legislature, judiciary and executive have been defined.

230 articles of this new constitution were discussed as well as voted upon by Salafist and Islamist MPs at the rushed session of Egyptian Parliament which took place for 16 hours. This was also followed by protests and boycotting. The secular, liberal as well as leftist opposition with the minority Coptic Christians proscribed proceedings of Parliament while discussions and voting was going on.  

As per the law of Egypt, now the draft would be sanctioned by the President of Egypt- Morsey. It would then be put for referendum from the nation within a month.  It was concluded that speeding up passing of the draft was important because constitution was the need of the hour urgently in order to have properly-elected Parliament, President for execution of the law as well as an independent judiciary. President Morsey guarded his decisions on the grounds that his decisions were a step for saving the revolution which brought down the regime of Mubarak.

In the meanwhile, National Salvation Front- the umbrella of leftist, secular and liberal opposition as well as youth revolutionary movements criticised this decision as ill-conceived and hastily moved. President Morsey was blamed to impose this constitution. The decision of the Parliament is seen as the effort to block the ruling of court which could have dissolved constitution drafting body completely. The ruling on dissolution of constitution assembly as well as upper house of Parliament was outstanding by the Supreme Constitutional Court.

Consequently, possibly this would increase tiff between the opposition as well as the Government because the opposition is continuously demanding fragmenting Presidential diktat which grants comprehensive powers to the existing President.