Egypt's new parliament approved two controversial laws on Sunday as it started reviewing legislation passed by President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi since June 2014, including the so-called "terrorist entities" law.
The first law, issued by El-Sisi in July 2015, grants him the right to depose the heads of four state financial and regulatory bodies.
Those bodies are the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE), the Administrative Control Authority (ACA), the Accountability State Authority (ASA) – the country's central auditing agency – and the Egyptian Financial Supervisory Authority (EFSA).
El-Sisi set four conditions for exercising the right to depose these top officials, including the existence of solid evidence that the official compromised national security, evidence that they are harming the country's interests or other public figures, if they were proven morally incompetent, and if health conditions prevents them from performing their jobs.
The position of ASA head Hisham Geneina may be on the line as El-Sisi requested that parliament investigate Geneina's recent statement that state corruption led to the loss of LE600 billion.
The second piece of legislation is the "terrorist entities" law which was passed by El-Sisi in February 2015.
Many experts say that the law gives a broad definition of terrorism, and can include individuals or entities who call for "the repealing of laws or prevent state institutions or public authorities from functioning or seek to attack the personal liberty of citizens or other freedoms and rights granted [to citizens] by the law and constitution, or to harm national unity or social peace."
