Court starts looking into disputed poll laws

Egypt’s top court yesterday started hearing lawsuits contesting the legality of rules on the basis of which the country’s forthcoming parliamentary elections will be held.

The two-stage polls, scheduled to begin in late March, will be the last major step in a political road map declared in mid-2013 following the army’s ouster of Islamist president Mohammad Mursi.

Suits have been filed to the Supreme Court against a law on electoral district distribution and another on a poll system mixing between individual candidacy and absolute lists of political parties.

Pleading his case, Jamal Zahran, an ex-lawmaker, who has lodged one of the lawsuits, told the court that the electoral codes are biased and undemocratic.

“It is absurd to accept laws, which are against democracy and freedom,” Zahran said. “These laws waste citizens’ votes.”

He called on the court to put off the elections until what he called “faulty” laws are amended.

Presiding judge Abdul Wahab Abdul Razzaq said that the court will resume hearings today and deliver a ruling on Sunday.

Chief justice of the court Adly Mansour stepped aside from hearing the case because some of the disputed laws were issued when he was in power as Egypt’s interim president following Mursi’s overthrow.

Should the court invalidate the laws, this will throw the elections into disarray, according to observers.

Suits have been filed to the Supreme Court against a law on electoral district distribution and another on a poll system mixing between individual candidacy and absolute lists of political parties.