The committee’s decision comes amid a heated debate here over the military’s current and future place in the Egyptian government after the ouster five months ago of President Hosni Mubarak. Some have turned to the military for protection against fears of an Islamist victory at the polls, while others are more afraid that the military itself might try to hold onto power to protect itself and its financial interests from democratic control.
The military said last week that it planned to impose its own “declaration of basic principles” to guide the draftingof a constitution, apparently yielding to liberals’ requests for some binding statement of rights to protect them against the possibility of an Islamist takeover. But as further insurance against that possibility, senior officers and some legal experts involved in the drafting also suggested that the declaration should grant the military broad authority to intervene in the elected government to protect national unity or the secular state.
The Turkish military assigned itself a similar supervisory role after its 1980 coup.
The committee was formed after at least one member, Mohamed Nour Farahat, was asked by military leaders to assemble a group that could merge various existing proposals for such a declaration. Previous proposals had included provisions spelling out the role of the military. Some even advocated shielding the defense budget from public disclosure.
But the drafting committee, meeting on Tuesday, elected not to include any provision about the military, deciding to limit its proposed declaration to points of agreement like basic individual rights, said Judge Tahani el Gibali, a leader of the group who herself had previously argued for giving the military a broad mandate to intervene in the civilian government.
“We went through all the proposals and took the principles that are agreed upon,” she said. “The role of the military can be mentioned in the constitution in the detailed articles addressing state institutions.” Mr. Farahat, a legal scholar in the group who had questioned the proposals for a Turkish-style model, confirmed the decision.
Judge Gibali said that the military retains the authority to change or revise the draft guidelines before issuing them.
“This is a proposal that they have the power to amend,” she said. “We can’t enforce it. They are the actual authority in the country, so they make the decision.” She added, “The history of the Egyptian military cannot be questioned, and we are confident they will look into the matter in the context of the public interest.”
Judge Gibali and others involved said the drafting committee included legal scholars, human rights activists, a representative of the Al Azhar — a state-run Islamic institution of higher learning known for its antipathy to Islamist politics — and a delegate representing Mohamed ElBaradei, the former United Nations diplomat who has become a liberal standard-bearer here.
Addressing another liberal attempt to insulate against an Islamist takeover, Judge Gibali said the committee’s proposed declaration also laid out standards for the group that will be created to draft the new constitution “to keep any majority from dominating it.”
The military-led government has already indicated that a newly elected Parliament will choose a panel of 100 people to draft the new constitution, and Judge Gibali said the proposed declaration stipulates that the panel should include 20 constitutional experts as well as 80 people who are representative of various segments of the Egyptian population in “equal proportions.”
“The formation of the committee should include all the political, religious, social, intellectual sectors,” she said, including representatives of labor unions, farmers, religious groups, scientific associations, human rights activists, writers, the disabled, businessmen and people from remote areas like Sinai. The police and armed forces should also be represented, she said. The proposal also suggested that all deliberations be televised, she said.
A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, the venerable Islamist group whose popularity is unnerving Egyptian liberals, said it opposes the declaration as unnecessary and undemocratic. Essam El Arian, a leader of the brotherhood’s newly formed political party, said it already supported provisions for the committee drafting the constitution to be more diverse than a parliamentary majority. “It should represent society with all its components,” he said, so that it could satisfy “the whole society.”
But he denounced the proposed “declaration of basic principles” as a restraint on democracy, saying that it would make the constitution representative of only “the people who imposed these restrictions.”
Under mounting pressure from all sides as the battle to shape Egypt’s future heats up, the military-led government on Tuesday postponed the swearing-in of a reshuffled cabinet because the interim prime minister, Essam Sharaf, was unable to attend. State media reported that he had been taken to a hospital for tests on Monday night because of a drop in his blood pressure attributed to “fatigue after a tough day.” It was unclear when he would return to work.
0 Comment:
Post a Comment