Monday's papers: Morsy checkmates SCAF over Parliament (edited)

KGS NightWatch said:

Comment: What is missing in the press coverage is that a subsequent Court ruling suspended the earlier Court ruling that suspended the parliament. The dueling court rulings left the parliament intact, still dominated by the Brotherhood and the Salafist parties. Mursi has convened it.

Mursi appears to have the law on his side but the appeal process is not complete. Thus, he deliberately has challenged the authority of the armed forces during the pendency of the appeal. This is the second time he has confronted the armed forces.

Mursi is acting on political issues that earlier SCAF declarations indicated were outside the purview of the SCAF. The Brotherhood President is outsmarting the generals. He is pushing the limits of his authority, presuming that anything not proscribed is permitted.

In convening the parliament, he is gathering elected allies for a confrontation against the appointed generals. As president, and with the backing of parliament, he has the legal authority to fire the entire Supreme Council of the Armed Forces. The SCAF has operated with no legal authority for its various declarations, except its monopoly of guns.

Mursi appears to be pitting the results of elections against the guns, provoking a potential constitutional crisis. The generals have the option of refusing the challenge, which they are likely to do. In which case, parliament will convene; a constitutional assembly will gather, but the generals will remain the parens patriae, the guardians of civil order.

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“Morsy to the army: Checkmate,” privately owned newspaper Al-Watan’s headline reads.

The Freedom and Justice Party paper says: “The president is victorious for the people,” a play on the word “people” in Arabic, which also refers to the People’s Assembly, the lower house of Parliament.

Freedom and Justice is the party paper of the Muslim Brotherhood’s political wing, the Islamist movement from which the president hails.

Last month, a Supreme Constitutional Court ruling dissolved Parliament, deeming one-third of the seats unconstitutional.

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Egypt’s parliamentary speaker said the chamber would reconvene on Tuesday, risking a showdown with the army after the new, Islamist president defied the generals by quashing the dissolution of the legislature they had ordered last month.

Quoted by state news agency MENA on Monday, Saad al-Katatny — who, like President Mohamed Morsy, hails from the long-suppressed Muslim Brotherhood — said the lower house would sit from noon on Tuesday, overturning a court judgment and military order issued a month ago, before Morsy’s election.

The move, heralded by a decree issued by Morsy on Sunday — barely a week after he took office — threatens Egypt with fresh political uncertainty likely to take a toll on a fragile economy and dash the hopes of many desperate for a period of calm after 17 turbulent months since the overthrow of Hosni Mubarak.

However, in a signal that relations have far from broken down between Morsy and the army, the president and the head of the military council appeared together, looking relaxed and in conversation, at a televised event on Monday morning.

The military council, which had run Egypt since Mubarak was toppled by popular protests in February last year, handed powers to Morsy on 30 June, but it had sought to trim his authority shortly before he took office following a vote on 16 and 17 June. It had dissolved Parliament and taken legislative power for itself.

Yet in a move that seemed to take even the generals by surprise, Morsy said on Sunday he was recalling Parliament and would hold an election once a constitution was in place, meaning that Parliament would not serve a full four-year term.

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As president, and with the backing of parliament, he has the legal authority to fire the entire Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.

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http://en.aswatmasriya.com/news/view.aspx?id=6f3312e7-1d1a-427a-b654-d2befbbcf63f said:

Parliament speaker, Saad al-Katatni, decided to suspend today's session of the reinstated People's Assembly (lower house) and refer the Constitutional Court’s ruling, that led to the assembly's dissolution, to the Court of Cassation.

“The court will review the authenticity of the membership of the assembly and inform the assembly of its conclusion”, Katatni said.

The assembly also decided earlier today to refer the Constitutional Court’s ruling to its legislative committee to study its implications.

Egypt’s President Mohamed Mursi decided on Sunday to reinstate parliament, defying Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi's decision to dissolve it. Tantawi’s decision had come in light of a Constitutional Court’s ruling invalidating the parliamentary elections law.

Katatni insisted that Mursi’s decision does not contest the court verdict but Tantawi's decision. He noted that today’s parliamentary session was only procedural to address the court’s ruling and Mursi’s invitation for the assembly to reconvene.

Katatni insisted that the assembly respects Egypt’s judiciary and will not intervene in its work, pointing that the law allows for appeals against court rulings.

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reefedjib said:

Queen to KB4...

Its just democracy...it gets a little messy sometimes. Just think of it as the Gop v the Dems.

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judiciary_of_Egypt#Courts said:

Court of Cassation (Mahkamt al-Naqd)
The Court of Cassation, the only one in its category, was established in 1931 and based in Cairo. The Court of Cassation, the exclusive body atop the judicial hierarchy in Egypt, was designated with the purpose of creating a central tool to provide exclusive and uniform interpretation and application of law. The jurisdiction of Court of Cassation basically includes consideration of challenges brought to it by either adversary or by the public prosecution. It also includes examining lawsuits related to judges' actions. In such a case, the court undertakes its role as a court of merit, rather than a court of law.

It also has the power to give rulings on requests of reparations for all violated verdicts. The court issues annual collections on approved judicial principles under the title “Rulings and Principles of The Court of Cassation”.

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