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Members of Parliament Adopted EOHR's Draft Law of the Law on Exercising Political Rights
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19/4/2007
A group of MPs announced the adoption of the EOHR's proposed draft law of Law on Exercising Political Rights in the workshop held on the 18th April 2007. EOHR's Secretary General Hafez Abu Seada confirmed that the concerned law was one of the laws that were frequently amended, especially in the elections years of 1972, 1984, 1990, 1994, 2000 and finally 2005. despite of all these amendments, this law still contains a lot of defects. Accordingly, EOHR held this workshop do prepare a draft amendment to this law to be presented to the President and both the Parliament and Shura Council. Abu Seada Added that EOHR's draft law which is called "Law on Public Elections and Referendums" consists of ten chapters and 79 articles, which tackled all aspects of the electoral process, starting from the preparation of the voters lists and ending with violations. The law stressed on marginalizing the role of the Ministry of Interior and Ministry of Justice in the whole electoral process and the importance of using the phosphoric ink in elections and referendums. On the other side, Husain Abdel Razik, Secretary General of al Tagamoa party said that EOHR's draft law is characterized by combining and including all elections and referendums in one law to guarantee the fairness. Abdel Razik also added the Tagamoa Party proposed a draft law of the same law in 1990 with the contribution of Wafd Party, Nasserite Party, the Muslim Brotherhood, Ahrar Party and Labor Party, and this draft law was frequently presented by the Tagamoa after every constitutional amendment.
Esam Sheha of the Wafd Party pointed that the government amended this law many times, and he believed that it will be amended three more times, first in the next Shura elections, second when amending the electoral system in the municipalities, and third in supporting political parties and women and making the nomination by the proportional list. Sheha demanded cooperation among different civil society organizations in monitoring elections and referendums starting from the next Shura Council elections.
Esam el Erian of the Muslim Brotherhood stated that the Egyptian environment lacks the will to change politically and constitutionally and it will reject any proposals that
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