{الفكر القومي العربي} Fwd: Say no to the proposed constitution.

Subject: Fwd: Say no to the proposed constitution.

 

My position on the drafted proposed Egyptian Constitution.

 

I, Samia Harris, am not a lawyer and I do not claim mastery of law, I do however study different countries' constitutions and the International Bill of Rights. I do not belong to any parties and I am not anti any organizations in Egypt or in the World.

 

Egypt has been my love and passion and from that love and care that I will say no to the proposed constitution. It is to my sorrow that Mr. Amer Mussa and his fifty members committee did not respect the wish of the Egyptian people nor did they respect the goals of the revolution. That to me is an insult to the intelligence Egyptians and it is to serve special interest groups but not the Egyptian people's interests. History and the Egyptians must hold all these people accountable for their act and their waste of valuable time instead of delivering on the wonderful opportunity that they were given to do something as noble as writing a country's constitution.

 

This fifty members committee could have entered current history as the ones who saved Egypt and took it forward to a future that all Egyptians would be proud of. Instead unfortunately they produced a constitution that is being shoved to Egyptians and positioned as the only option for Egypt or else the country will fall apart. This committee could have been called for ever as the founding fathers of new and improved Egypt similar to the founding fathers of the United States of America but now they will be registered in history as the people who feared for their own interest or their lives or whatever personal reason, the result is shameful and less than the Egyptian Revolution 's aspiration.

 

I am going to highlight a few of the points that makes this constitution less than desirable:

 

I could forgive the lengthy composition that does nothing but makes the Constitution lengthy and not suitable for 21 century.

 

Recognizing that Egypt has roots with Africa and Asia is great but how about our Pharonic roots that brings one sixth of Egypt economy on annual basis? How about our Mediterranean roots and connections?

 

Having a designated percentage in every field i.e. health, education, industry , agriculture is a budget issue and must be changed according to the country's needs and not be a constitution issue. It will create serious problems to the country. Having the option of single list and or party list is an election code and not a constitution code and should be dealt with by the election board .

 

Allowing the Egyptians with dual nationalities and or living abroad to be appointed as minister is a great equal opportunity.  Preventing them from presidency will create legal challenges for the system.

 

How could we allow the transnational president to decide what election we will hold first ? Have we not suffered enough from electing a president without a contract?

The most sinful problem is giving SCAF higher power than all. No one should be above the law. The defense minister must be treated and accounted for just like any minster in the Egyptian government.

 

We must not give any special legal status to the military as they are an equal part of the Egyptian society. They must perform their job in an accountable and transparent way.

 

We must trust our judicial and legal system therefore no military trial for any civilians regardless what the cause is. If we need to update our laws then we can do that within our civil society. 

 

We can avoid other countries' mistakes. The closest experience to ours is Turkey, after struggling with 1961 constitution which resulted from a coup d'état, they had another coup d'état in 1981 which gave the same military privileges that Egypt proposed constitution is trying to give the military now. After a continuous power struggle with the military Turkey finally amended its constitution to have a civil society with equal opportunity and no special privileges for the military in September 13th 2010. This reduced the power of the military court system on the civilian population, removed the immunity from prosecution from any one and improved human rights according to international standards. Must we go through the same struggle? 

 

I ask that we bring this proposed constitution to an acceptable international human rights level, one that will match the aspiration of the Egyptians and the goals of the revolution.

 

God bless Almahrowsa .

Samia Harris.

Democracy for Egypt