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Militant Islam Monitor > Articles > Egyptian Court: Muslim Brotherhood/ Salafist Drafted Constitution Put On Hold

Egyptian Court: Muslim Brotherhood/ Salafist Drafted Constitution Put On Hold

April 18, 2012

April 10, 2012 - San Francisco, CA - PipeLineNews.org - An administrative court in Egypt has voided the process - temporarily - by which Egypt's new constitution was being drafted.

Tensions have been rising since the country's main Islamist political parties, the FJP [Muslim Brotherhood] and the Nour party [Salafist], made the decision to stack the 100 member assembly [charged with drafting the document] with Islamists supportive of a theocracy, based upon strict Shari'a enforcement.

Copts, leftists and what are described as "liberals," have expressed their objections by leaving the assembly, claiming it has no legitimacy because it is dominated by hard-line Islamists.

Though the Ikhwan [Arabic for Muslim Brotherhood] has stated that it supports the court's decision [see, Dr. Morsi: Freedom and Justice Party Respects Verdict on Constituent Assembly, http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=29867] that support only goes so far in that the FJP is challenging the decision.

"Freedom and Justice Party lawyer Ahmed Abu-Baraka has announced the party's intention to appeal a Tuesday verdict issued by the Supreme Administrative Court that found Egypt's recently-established Constituent Assembly – tasked with drafting a new national charter – unconstitutional..." [source, FJP to appeal verdict against Egypt's Constituent Assembly, Al Ahram online, http://english.ahram.org.eg/NewsContent/1/64/38974/Egypt/Politics-/-FJP-to-appeal-verdict-against-Egypts-Constituent-.aspx]

This roadblock has of course thrown Egyptian politics into a state of increased turmoil as the country prepares to elect a president.

Especially troubling for those in the West [read the Obama administration] should be a statement by one of the MB's attorneys that seemed to indicate that a new Egyptian constitution will not contain such broadly accepted propositions as judicial review, saying that the legislature has "the right to function without supervision." [source, Al Ahram]

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http://www.pipelinenews.org/index.cfm?page=egypt4102012101%2Ehtm

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