EGYPT
March 29, 2012
3 minutes read

Senior Judges in Egypt: Field Marshal Not Entitled to Dissolve Parliament

Egyptian researcher Dr. Ammar Ali Hassan, in a comment on his personal page on the social networking site Facebook, raised the issue of Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, head of Egypt’s military rulers, the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), who recently threatened to dissolve the elected parliament if it discussed the issue of withdrawing confidence from the current government, appointed by SCAF a couple of days before that parliament was elected in Egypt’s first ever free and fair elections.

For his part, Justice Mahmoud Al- Khodeiri, Chairman of the People’s Assembly Legislative Committee, stressed that SCAF does not have the power to dissolve parliament, under the constitutional declaration, explaining that SCAF is the acting President of the Republic now. However, powers to dissolve parliament would require new constitutional legislation.

Furthermore, Dr. Atef Al-Banna, the constitutional expert, asserted that, "SCAF does not have the legal or constitutional right to dissolve parliament. There simply is no provision in the Constitutional Declaration that allows SCAF to do that".

Al-Banna added that although SCAF is acting head of the republic, it has no right to dissolve parliament. If it had this right, the Constitutional Declaration should state that explicitly, and it certainly does not.

The constitutional expert confirmed that parliament has all oversight powers over government in all ways and methods of monitoring, which include withdrawing confidence from the government.