Kvindegrupper og studerende fejrede kendelsen uden for retslokalet – de frygter, at islamiske kræfter vil ændre grundloven, så den lukker sharia ind ad bagdøren og svækker mindretalsrettigheder, herunder de 7-8 millioner kristne kopteres stilling.
A court in Egypt has suspended the 100-member assembly appointed last month to draft the country’s new constitution, which will determine the influence of Sharia on Egyptian law and religious and ethnic minority rights, BBC online writes Tuesday.
Several lawsuits had demanded Cairo’s Administrative Court block the decision to form the panel as it did not reflect the diversity (sammensæt-ning) of Egyptian society. They said women, young people and minorities were under-represented.
Islamists from the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist Nour party, which controls more than half of parliamentary seats, have a near-majority in the assembly.
Liberals and secularists fear some of them would like to amend (ændre) the constitution so that it follows the principles of Islamic law more strictly.
Once the assembly has produced a draft, it will be put to a referendum (folkeafstemning). It had been hoped that would take place before May’s presidential election.
The Administrative Court stated that it had halted “the implementation of the decision by the speaker of parliament” to form it and had referred the question of its legitimacy to a legal adviser.
“This is great, it is very reassuring and I am very happy,” said Hala Gamal of the Women and Memory Forum, a civil rights group.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party has said it will appeal against the court’s decision describing it as “political”.
The ruling followed complaints by political groups and constitutional experts over parliament’s decision to select the assembly itself and to allocate half the seats to sitting MPs.
The complaints said both moves violated Article 60 of the constitutional declaration adopted in a referendum last year – which does not state how the assembly should be appointed – and would also give Islamists unmatched influence over the constitution-drafting process.
“The constituent assembly is unrepresentative of Egyptians,” said the advisory council of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
