Friday, July 12, 2013

Strong Egypt Party Rejects Constitutional Declaration by Military Council

Strong Egypt Party rejects constitutional declaration

Ahram Online, Thursday 11 Jul 2013

The party speaks out against Egypt's constitutional declaration, saying interim president has absolute powers

Strong Egypt Party has announced its refusal of the constitutional declaration issued by interim president Adly Mansour earlier this week.

In a statement released Thursday, the party said among its main reasons for rejecting the declaration was that it gave the interim president executive, legislative and constitutional powers.

"This establishes a dictatorship previously rejected by all political democratic forces when the elected president had all these powers," Strong Egypt Party said, referring to the political parties and forces that stood against ousted president Mohamed Morsi's constitutional declaration in November 2012 that also gave him full authority.

The party also rejected the constitution for giving the interim president the power to appoint the members of the constitutional amendments committee."The party preferred to have the constitutional amendment members elected," read the statement.

"A vague article allowing for detention on reasons of allegedly protecting the society's 'security' in the constitutional declaration is considered a huge setback in the course of freedom," said the party in the statement, naming another reason for their refusal.

Strong Egypt Party also rejected the constitutional declaration because it did not explicitly place a ban on military trials of civilians, referring to Article 19.

The party repudiated the article that keeps the formation of the National Defence Council issued in June 2012 during Egypt's Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) rule.

"According to the current formation of the National Defence Council, the majority of its members are from the military, which is a threat to the civil state," read the statement.

Strong Egypt Party is not the only group in Egypt that has spoken out against the constitutional declaration issued last Tuesday by the interim president after suspending the Constitution.

The National Salvation Front, Rebel (Tamarod) campaign, and April 6 Youth Movement have also criticised the declaration. Rebel announced that it held talks in the past days with the interim president, who promised that the constitutional declaration would be amended soon.

http://english.ahram.org.eg/News/76260.aspx

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