What is the secret of the return of the Egyptian Senate?

Doaa Abdel Latif - Cairo

The Egyptian parliament is preparing to pass the law on the establishment of the Senate as a second chamber of parliament, amid a debate over the purpose of its return after its repeal in the 2013 constitution following the military coup.

The House of Representatives was expected to pass the law on Monday at the end of the fourth session, but apparently given priority to the NGO law and the Insurance and Pensions Act, amid speculation that the Senate will pass its law when the council convenes in October.

The Egyptian authorities appear to have a desire to complete the Senate elections before the end of this year or at the latest at the beginning of next year. The 2013 constitution abolished the second chamber of the so-called Majlis al-Shura, but the constitutional amendments that were submitted to the referendum in April, Approved the return of the second chamber of parliament under the name of the Senate.

Feasibility

Under the amended Constitution, the Senate is concerned with examining and proposing what it deems to be the pillars of democracy, the promotion of social peace, the basic elements of society and its supreme values, rights, freedoms and public duties, and the deepening of the democratic system.

The opinion of the Senate is taken in the proposals to amend one or more articles of the Constitution, the draft General Plan for Social and Economic Development, the Treaties of Reconciliation and the Alliance and all treaties relating to sovereign rights.

The majority of the members of the 50th Committee, which wrote the 2013 Constitution, considered the Shura Council as a successor to corruption and a means used by the ruling regime to provide political favors to loyalists.

During the discussions of the 50th Committee on the abolition of the Shura Council, the head of the Bar Association and member of the committee, Sameh Ashour, said that the Shura Council came as a thinker and distributed positions to electoral forces. The National Democratic Party (which was a political arm of deposed President Hosni Mubarak and was dissolved after the January revolution) Can only be covered by the People's Assembly.

Ashour showed his opinion on the size of the turnout in the last elections of the Council, which did not exceed 6% of the total electorate.

A member of the political bureau of the Tagammu Party, Hussein Abdel Razek, then pointed out that the countries with a high population density and different nationalities or having a federal or confederal system, the two-chamber system, an elected council based on equal constituencies and another council representing the states equally.

"While simple, unintegrated states that do not have nationalities or ethnic conflicts take the one-room system as in the case of Egypt," he said.

Number of members

Under the parliament, there is agreement on the establishment of the Senate, but there is a difference on the number of its deputies. For its part, the coalition of support for Egypt (the parliamentary majority) in the draft law to create the Council of 240 members, the election of 80 deputies list system and 80 individual system with the appointment of the President 80 deputies .

While the head of the parliamentary body of the Party of Egyptians Liberal Party draft law provides for the composition of the Council of 300 members, to be elections system closed list of all seats, and two thirds of the members by secret ballot direct, and appoints the President of the Republic third third.

While the Wafd Party issued a statement demanding that the membership be 270 members, including 180 elected members of the closed list, and 90 members appointed by the President of the Republic.

According to the amended Constitution, the Senate shall be composed of a number of members determined by the law of not less than 180 members. Two thirds of its members shall be elected by secret universal suffrage. The President shall appoint the remaining third, with a term of five years.

The constitutional amendment, which took place last April, did not mean the continuation of the current authority until 2030, but the passing of this necessitated the establishment of a filler to decorate the move, including the return of the Shura Council.

Al-Koumi told Al-Jazeera Net that the Senate's goal is not legislative or democratic, but rather to pump more clamors and tyrants into the arena of the coup regime, he said.

The new council will, according to al-Koumi, represent the satisfaction of all those who have not been chosen by the security services in the House of Representatives.

The former parliamentarian said that the salaries of the members of the House of Representatives amount to 50,000 pounds per month, which means that the second chamber will constitute a new financial burden that burdens the state with more expenses, as well as spending during the election process.

In the same context, the Deputy Foreign Relations Committee of the former parliament Jamal Heshmat, the invalidity of the legitimacy of the constitutional amendments, which is based on the Senate in its establishment.

Hishmat told Al Jazeera Net that the amendments were made outside the framework of the stable state and under the rule described by the military and the despot.

He said that the Shura Council was a refuge for the sick from the regime or to be protected from any criminal prosecution with parliamentary immunity, and expected that the Senate would be an extension for this purpose, and that the security services will choose the members of the new council.

This comes at a time when critics criticize the failure of the House of Representatives in turn in the control of the government, and emptied to pass all the laws required by the executive authority, while the social networking sites ridicule MPs and describe them as "