FJP News
March 27, 2012
128 minutes read

Freedom and Justice Parliamentary Commission Statement on Constituent Assembly Election

The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) Parliamentary Commission at the People’s Assembly and Shura Council has been following the ongoing argument concerning the election of the Constituent Assembly to write the Egyptian constitution. Whilst certain claims accuse the FJP of monopolizing a majority of seats in the constituent panel, the unfounded allegations do not entirely reflect the facts that emerged from the election results. Indeed, FJP representation – from both Houses of Parliament and personalities affiliated to the FJP from outside Parliament – does not exceed 30% of Assembly membership, while other political parties, intellectual and independent personalities take up the lion’s share of 70%.

The FJP Parliamentary Commission stresses that the proportions of representation had been voted in by a majority of 86% during a joint meeting of the People’s Assembly and Shura Council on Saturday 17 March 2012. Preceding that vote, parliamentary debate covered many options, including demands to choose all members of the Assembly from within Parliament, proposals for the contrary, and suggestions to allow representation of 1% to 99% of the panel from elected lawmakers. Eventually, a large majority voted for the FJP’s consensus proposal deciding that 50% of panel members would be from Parliament. Then, after extensive discussions witnessed live on TV by the Egyptian people and even the whole world, the mechanisms of election and selection of members of the Constituent Assembly were approved.

Egyptian People’s Assembly and Shura Council elected MPs debated all nominations, representing 141 institutions, trade unions and authorities, as well as individuals and lawmakers. In our choices, we took into account geographical and specialist representation as well as representation of political parties and different ideological persuasions, youth, students, the Copts, women, and Egyptians abroad, all based on criteria of experience and specialization, diversity and nominations. Selection choices were as follows:

First: Judicial bodies whose representatives have been selected based on nomination by those bodies

No	Name	Authority
1	Justice Hossam Ghariani	President of the Supreme Judicial Council
2	Justice Ali Saleh Awad	Second Vice-President of the Supreme Constitutional Court
3	Justice Adel Abdel-Hamid	Minister of Justice
4	Justice Yahya Al-Dakroury	President of the State Council Judges Club
5	Justice Abdullah Qandil	Vice-President of Administrative Prosecution Club
6	Justice Ahmed Mohamed Khalifa	Representative of the State Litigation Authority

Second: Trade unions – first nominations were selected regardless of political affiliations or intellectual and ideological persuasions

No	Name	Authority
1	Mr. Sameh Ashour	Chairman of the Bar
2	Mr. Mamdouh Al-Wali	Journalists Syndicate Chairman
3	Dr. Majid Al-Khulusi	Engineers Syndicate Chairman
4	Mr. Ashraf Abdel Ghafour	Actors’ Syndicate Chairman
5	Dr. Mohamed Abdel Gawad	Pharmacists Syndicate Chairman

Third: Religious institutions

No	Name	Authority
1	Sheikh Nasr Farid Wassel	Al-Azhar
2	Counselor Nabil Mirham	Former President of the State Council – Orthodox Church
3	Magdy Shenouda	Lawyer – Orthodox Church
4	Ihab Kharrat	Member of the Shura Council – Evangelical Church

Third: Presidents, deans and professors of public and private universities, colleges

No	Name	Authority
1	Dr. Osama Ibrahim	President of the University of Alexandria
2	Dr. Muhammad Ahmed Sherif	President of Minya University
3	Dr. Abdul Rahman Al-Barr	Dean of the Faculty of Theology – Azhar University in Mansoura
4	Dr. Gamal Nawara	Secretary-General of Private Universities

Fourth: Young people and students

No	Name	Authority
1	Dr. Ahmed Harara	Young protestor and one of the revolution’s wounded
2	Ahmed Ayman Al-Marakbi	Student – President-elect of the Youth Parliament, Mansoura University
3	Fatima Abu Zaid	Young researcher – BA Political Science

Fifth: Political science and systems professors

No	Name	Authority
1	Dr. Nadia Mustafa	Professor, Faculty of Economics and Political Science
2	Dr. Mo’taz Billah Abdel-Fattah	Professor, Faculty of Economics and Political Science; founder of the House of Wisdom (constitution authoring expert center)
3	Dr. Mostafa Kamel El-Sayed	Professor, Faculty of Economics and Political Science; member of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights
4	Dr. Amr Hamzawy	Professor, Faculty of Economics and Political Science; member of the People’s Assembly
5	Dr. Wahid Abdel Meguid	Vice Chairman of Al-Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies; member of the People’s Assembly
6	Dr. Amr Shobaki	Political movements expert at Al-Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies; member of the People’s Assembly

Sixth: Scholars and professors of constitutional, criminal and civil law – in addition to above-named representatives of the Constitutional Court, the Supreme Judicial Council, the State Litigation Authority and the State Council

No	Name	Authority
1	Dr. Mahmoud Saqqa	Professor of Philosophy of Law at Cairo University; member of the People’s Assembly
2	Counselor Mahmoud Khudairi	Vice-President of the Court of Cassation ; Chairman of the Committee on Constitutional and Legislative Affairs at the People’s Assembly
3	Mr. Sobhi Saleh	Deputy of the Committee on Constitutional and Legislative Affairs at the People’s Assembly; member of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments
4	Dr. Atef Al-Banna	Professor of Constitutional Law at Cairo University; member of the Committee on Constitutional Amendments
5	Dr. Majid Shebeita	Ph.D. in Constitutional Law

Seventh: Women – in addition to female personalities already mentioned above

No	Name	Authority
1	Dr. Hoda Ghaneya	Physician; member of the People’s Assembly
2	Professor Margaret Azir	Member of the Supreme Commission of Wafd Party; member the People’s Assembly
3	Dr. Mona Makram Ebeid	Member of the Supreme Commission of the Social Democratic Party of Egypt
4	Dr. Susan Saad Zaghloul	Professor, Institute of Marine Sciences; member of the Shura Council

Ninth: Intellectuals and writers – in addition to intellectuals and authors representing other bodies and institutions

No	Name	Authority
1	Dr. Mohamed Emara	Renowned thinker
2	Professor Farouk Jweideh	Poet and writer
3	Dr. Rafiq Habib	Coptic thinker, Intellectual; also represents the Anglican Church

Tenth: Political Parties

No	Name	Authority
1	Dr. Sayed Badawi	Wafd party Chairman
2	Dr. Mohamed Abul-Ghar	Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Egypt
3	Abdul Ghaffar Shukr	Leftist thinker; founder of the Socialist People’s Alliance party
4	Dr. Ahmed Saeed	Chairman of the Free Egyptians party
5	Mohamed Esmat Sadat	Chairman of Reform and Development party

Eleventh: Economists

No	Name	Authority
1	Dr. Ziad Bahaa El-Din	Member of the People’s Assembly; former Chairman of the Capital Market Authority; representative of the Parliamentary Commission of the Social Democratic Party of Egypt
2	Ahmed Sayed Naggar	Economist at Al-Ahram Center for Strategic and Political Studies
3	Professor Ibrahim Arabi	Representative of the General Federation of Chambers of Commerce
4	Dr. Hussein Hamid Hassan	International economic expert
5	Dr. Mobad Garhi	International banking expert

Twelfth: Foreign Affairs and Egyptians Abroad

No	Name	Authority
1	Ambassador Mohamed Rifa’aa Tahtawi	Foreign Ministry senior expert; great participation in the events of the Egyptian revolution
2	Dr. Mr. Ayman Sayed Ali	Secretary General of the Federation of Islamic Organizations in Europe, representative of Egyptians in Europe
3	Hassan Lachin	President-elect of the Association of Egyptians Working in Saudi Arabia; representative of Egyptians in Arab countries.

Thirteenth: Various specializations and disciplines

No	Name	Authority
1	Dr. Sherif Abdel Azim	Chairman of the Food Bank; President of the Message (Risala) Association
2	Abdel-Fattah Abdel-Tawab Khattab	Leftist labor leader; Assistant Secretary-General of the Federation of Egyptian Workers.
3	Captain Abdul-Aziz Abdul-Shafi (Zizou)	Former player of the Egyptian National team and Al-Ahly team; representative of athletes
4	Dr. Saleh Suleiman	Professor of Journalism at Cairo University; member of the People’s Assembly for the Sinai
5	Hani Nur al-Din	Member of the People’s Assembly for the Nubia
6	Major General Mamdouh Shahin	Representative of the Armed Forces
7	Major General Imad Hussein Hassan	Representative of the Ministry of Interior

The FJP Parliamentary Commission calls on Egyptian and Arab media to commit to objectivity and accuracy, and not to be drawn into attempts to distort the choices made by lawmakers who took up this responsibility entrusted to them by the Egyptian people in free and fair elections in which more than 60% of those who had the right to vote did turn out and take part, knowing fully well that their representatives in the People’s Assembly and Shura Council have – as one of the most important tasks assigned to them – the duty to elect members of the Constituent Assembly to write Egypt’s first post-revolution constitution.