ICC Note:
“Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament on Saturday voted overwhelmingly in favor of ensuring that its own lawmakers make up a large portion of a panel writing the country’s first constitution after the ouster of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak,” The Associated Press reports.
3/18/2012 Egypt (AP) – Egypt’s Islamist-dominated parliament on Saturday voted overwhelmingly in favor of ensuring that its own lawmakers make up a large portion of a panel writing the country’s first constitution after the ouster of longtime ruler Hosni Mubarak.
Lawmakers at a joint meeting of both houses approved a quota giving lawmakers half of the seats on a 100-member panel that will draft the new constitution.
The remaining 50 panel members will be chosen by parliament, and are likely to be legal experts, academics and Muslim and Christian scholars.
The makeup of the panel has been hotly debated. Islamists, who dominate the newly elected parliament, wanted lawmakers to have a significant role in the panel. But many Christians and liberals had pushed for more outsiders on the constitution writing body.
Amr Hamzawy, a lawmaker from a minority liberal party, said that the quota selected on Saturday is not representative enough of women, youth and other segments of Egyptian society who have little to no representation in parliament.
“What happened today lessens the chance for a wide representation of the country,” Hamzawy said, adding that he voted to have only 30 lawmakers on the panel. “I would have liked that there are less members of parliament.”
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