Ambitious legislative agenda

Gamal Essam El-Din , Monday 2 Sep 2024

MPs will discuss 34 draft laws during the next session of parliament.

Ambitious legislative agenda

 

Following the weekly cabinet meeting on 21 August, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli announced that the government will refer 34 draft laws to the House of Representatives for ratification in the new legislative season which begins in October.

Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Mahmoud Fawzi said the 34 draft laws were selected from among 65 separate pieces of draft legislation.

“While some were chosen on the basis of presidential directives and cabinet requests, others are being presented on the recommendation of the National Dialogue’s Board of Trustees or to implement constitutional obligations,” said Fawzi.

He added the government wants the new Criminal Procedures Law to top the House’s legislative agenda in its fifth — and final — session.

It took more than a year for a joint government-parliamentary sub-committee to prepare the 540-article draft law which is currently with the House’s Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee. House Speaker Hanafi Gebali told parliamentary reporters that once a final draft of the law is approved by the Legislative and Constitutional Affairs Committee it will be put up for final discussion and voting by the House in the first week of October.

The draft overhauls regulations governing criminal trials, the maximum duration of pretrial detention, travel bans, and asset freezes.

Also on 21 August, President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi directed the government to swiftly implement National Dialogue recommendations reforming the criminal justice system and reducing pretrial detention which he said should be dealt with as a preventive measure used only when necessary for ongoing investigations.

Fawzi said National Dialogue-recommended amendments approved by the president would soon be published. They include the recommendation that pretrial detention for crimes that carry the death penalty or life imprisonment be limited to 18 months rather than two years, pretrial detention for felonies be reduced from 18 to 12 months, and for misdemeanours from six to four months.

A cabinet statement noted parliament’s next legislative agenda also includes “draft bills on labour laws, local administration, competition and property registration”.

The 267-article Labour Law, approved by the Senate in February 2022, bans child labour, mandates annual wage increases, places a cap on working hours, loosens the regulations governing strikes and extends maternity leave and notice periods.

The bill faced sharp criticism from the business community which said it was biased in favour of workers and did not reflect the needs of Egypt’s market economy.

In April, the government approved amendments to the executive regulations of the Competition Law, one of which mandates that the Egyptian Competition Authority intervene to ensure competition rules are not violated and that “economic concentrations” — a reference to the dominance of a small number of firms in industries like defence and pharmaceuticals — do not negatively impact competition in the local market.

In an attempt to build a comprehensive property inventory and crack down on haphazard and informal buildings, MPs will discuss legislation under which each property is given a digital ID on a centralised government database. The government will issue ID cards/plates for every building and the law will impose penalties on anyone who removes or otherwise tampers with them.

The priority list of draft bills includes the long-awaited Local Administration Law. In its policy statement delivered before parliament on 8 July, Prime Minister Mustafa Madbouli promised that his government will work closely with the House of Representatives and the National Dialogue administration to issue a new law regulating local councils. The Supreme Administrative Court dissolved local councils in 2011 since when Egypt has been without a functioning local administration system.

The cabinet statement said MPs will also discuss amendments to the environment, university, traffic and state property laws, and new legislation that aims to increase corporate transparency.

MPs are also likely to discuss political bills proposed by the National Dialogue, and since the upcoming session is the last of the current parliament, it will be necessary for MPs to pass a new law on parliamentary elections. Changes to the political laws, including the 2014 law on the exercise of political rights, the 1977 law regulating the performance of political parties and the 2014 law regulating parliamentary elections are expected to find their way onto the legislative agenda.


* A version of this article appears in print in the 29 August, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly

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