Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Egypt court to hear appeal on Sunday over vote ruling

CAIRO (Reuters) - An Egyptian court will hear an appeal on Sunday against a ruling that led to the cancellation of parliamentary elections called by President Mohamed Mursi, the latest hurdle in Egypt's tortuous political transition.

A body representing the state said it had lodged an appeal with the Administrative Court against its ruling last week which cancelled Mursi's decision to hold the four-stage parliamentary vote from April 22 onwards.

A protester opposing Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi's rule waves an Egyptian flag during clashes at Tahrir Square in Cairo March 6, 2013.

Mursi and his Islamist backers in the Muslim Brotherhood are keen that the lower house election should go ahead quickly, seeing it as the final stage of the transition that followed Hosni Mubarak's removal from power more than two years ago.

But the Islamists' secular-minded opponents, who had planned to boycott the election, have welcomed the prospect of a delay, saying it might allow for consensus around a new election law. They had accused the Islamists of drafting a law to suit themselves.

The March 6 ruling cancelled Mursi's decree on technical grounds, saying the upper house of parliament should have returned the amended election law to the Supreme Constitutional Court for approval.

"We could be looking at a drawn-out process if the ruling stands," said Yasser El-Shimy, Egypt analyst for the International Crisis Group. "We could be potentially looking at Egypt not having a parliament for six to eight months."

Explaining why it had decided to appeal against the ruling, the state lawsuits authority said the ruling contained "legal mistakes and flaws that deviate it from all, set legal foundations", the state news agency reported.

The presidency and the election commission separately said they had not lodged the appeal, denying a report by the pan-Arab news channel Al Jazeera saying they were responsible.

Lawmakers in the Islamist-dominated upper house decided this week to draft an entirely new law, seeing this as a potentially faster route to holding the election than waiting for the Supreme Constitutional Court to approve the amended law.

The previous lower house of parliament, led by the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party, was dissolved last June following a ruling by the Supreme Constitutional Court that had found the election rules illegal.

(Writing by Tom Perry and Marwa Awad; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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Wednesday, March 13, 2013

Egypt court to hear appeal on Sunday over vote ruling