Egyptian Constitution : Drafting the Post Revolution Constitution

This is the first time we cover the draft of the Egyptian constitution from more than 60 years like that , this is the first time we blog about drafting the Egyptian constitution after the revolution.
Today the parliament “Upper house and lower house” is having a joint meeting to discuss the standards of choosing the members of the constituent assembly. It is the first from three to discuss those standards or rather choose these standards. 
It is worth to mention that according the constitutional declaration the presidential elections should be held before drafting the constitution. Also according to the that constitutional declaration issued  the constituent assembly is made of 100 member.
The discussion now is the presentation of how we are going to choose these members and the percentage of the parliamentarians , here is how it went.

• Freedom and Justice Party “Representing the Muslim brotherhood” suggests that the constituent assembly should be made of  40 parliamentarian and 60 from outside “30 Public figures and 30 representing different institutions”
• Al Nour Party “Salafist Party"  suggests that the constituent assembly should be 60 parliamentarians because they were elected by Egyptians directly and thus represent the society fairly and 30 public figures. The party is speaking on how the the previous constitution neglects the identity of the Nation “Islamist”
• Al Wafd Party supports FJP’s suggestion
• The Popular alliance party “Leftist” says the constituent assembly needs more representation from outside and that why we do not need big numbers from Parliamentarians.
• Al Gama’a Al Islamiya party says that 70% from the constituent assembly’s should be from the Parliamentarians and 30% should be from outside.
• Al Wasat Party “Moderate Islamist Party” believes that the percentage of representation is not important as much as it is the competency of the constituent assembly.
• Al Horreya Party “NDP Offshoot” believes that the constituent assembly should be made of 50% of parliamentarians and 50% members from outside the parliament.
• Social Democratic Party suggests that the 1/4 of the constituent assembly from the parliamentarians and 2/3 from outside. The party also suggests that 1/3 of the assembly’s members will be from women , different religions and geographic areas in Egypt  
• El Adl Party supports the suggestion of the FJP as long as there is no domination for specific party. He also added that there should be better representation for women , youth and revolution.
• MP Amr Hamzawy “Independent” suggests that the constituent committee is made of 30 parliamentarian and 70 members from outside.
• The Labor party “Islamist” suggests having elections to elect the members of the constituent committee using the list system.
• MP Amr Shobky of my district “Political science activist” said that the majority in the parliament can choose a government and not to draft a constitution. He added that the Islamic identity is not threatened in this constitution and we need a constitution that represent the Egyptian society and not the majority in the parliament. 

Now important remarks :

• Different Institutions that should be represented in the constituent committee includes the unions and syndications “MB got strong presence there” as well diplomatic service , army , police , religious institutions and above them judiciary
• Constitutions are not that constant , they can be changed and amended so easily with any change in the parliamentary membership structure in the next parliament

The members of the parliament as well citizens and all sectors in Egypt are going to send their suggestions to committee regarding the standards of the constitute assembly for a whole week , then  there will be another joint session on March 17th to discuss the suggestions. On March 24th the Upper House and Lower House will have another joint session to elected the constituent assembly.
Field Marshal Tantawy , the head of SCAF was supposed to attend the session and address the parliament but did not come for so-called “security reasons”. It is noticeable that Tantawy only address armed forces in public and has never addressed civilians or parliamentarians. 

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