El-Sisi issues decree forming 'legislation reform' panel

Egypt's President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi issued a presidential decree on Monday forming a Supreme Committee for legislation reform. The committee will be tasked with preparing, researching and studying draft laws as well as decrees issued by the president and prime minister that must be issued or amended in order to comply the articles of the 2014 constitution. The panel headed by the prime minister will include the ministers of parliamentary affairs and transitional justice, the head of the State Council, the state's Mufti, Al-Azhar's deputy, the head of the cabinet's advisory board, the head of the State Council's legislative department and the justice minister's assistant for legislation. The committee will also include judges, lawyers, law professors and legal experts. El-Sisi's decree assigns the committee to "review and finesse draft bills and decrees developed by ministries", in addition to weeding out duplicity, contradictions or ambiguity in legislation. All pieces of legislation must be in harmony with the clauses of the 2014 national charter, the decree stipulates. Egypt's upper house of parliament was dissolved last summer as part of the post-Mohamed Morsi road map announced by the army and which transferred legislative powers to the president. The last step of the road map is the election of a parliament, the procedures for which must commence before 17 July, according to 2014's amended national charter.