Egypt parliament to take final vote on emergency and economic laws on Monday
Gamal Essam El-Din, , Monday 20 Jul 2020
The parliament speaker told MPs that Monday’s plenary meeting is very important and that all should be keen to attend


Egypt parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal revealed on Sunday that the House will hold a long and important plenary meeting on Monday where “parliament will discuss a presidential decree aimed at extending the state of emergency for another three months, beginning on Monday 27 July.”

“Tomorrow, Monday 20 July, will be a long and highly important meeting and I hope that all will be keen to attend,” said Abdel-Aal.

Abdel-Aal indicated that a number of important economic legislations that were discussed and approved in principle in the past weeks will be put to a final vote on Monday.

“We will also a take a final vote on laws that form a basic part of the constitution, some of which with retroactive effect, and so I hope that all will attend tomorrow’s important meeting,” said Abdel-Aal.

Monday’s meeting is also of note because it will discuss granting President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi a mandate to intervene militarily in Libya. The mandate comes after President El-Sisi said during a meeting with leaders of Libyan tribes on 16 July that he should seek approval from the Egyptian parliament before he intervenes militarily in Libya to stand up to Turkish occupation.

In its meeting on Sunday, parliament approved amendments introduced by the State Council to two laws on regulating the performance of the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) and the Public Enterprise Companies Sector.

Parliament rejected a proposal for the administrative prosecution to be authorised to question CBE staff and employees. Parliament speaker Ali Abdel-Aal said the proposal was rejected because it could undermine the CBE’s independence and negatively impact the performance of the banking sector as a whole.

“When we discussed the CBE law in principle last May we agreed that the CBE will be completely independent and so the proposal submitted by the administrative prosecution is rejected,” said Abdel-Aal.

Speaker Abdel-Aal said a final vote on the 294-article CBE law will be postponed until a two-thirds majority is available.

“The same is true for the Public Enterprise Companies Law, which will be also put up for a final vote when we get a quorum of two-thirds majority,” said Abdel-Aal.

https://english.ahram.org.eg/News/374859.aspx