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A pleasant surprise announced by the President … Another Egypt is possible
Land Center for Human Rights has followed up the Presidents’ presentation of a proposal to the people’s and the state consultative councils to modify the clause no. 76 of the constitution that allows the President to be elected by secret public (direct) voting. This will form an important achievement and victory for democracy and the constitutional legality, this request is an important step as a response for the demands of the national forces and democracy that struggled and demanded for it since the middle of the last century to guarantee the right of peaceful alternation for authority between deferent parties and political forces. The Center hopes that this serious step continues on the road of democratic reform by canceling the state of emergency and the exceptional laws that restrain freedom of opinion and expression, forming syndicates, associations and parties, issuing newspapers and the right of gathering, striking and protesting.
The Center sees that this important step is the beginning of the road to comprehensive social and democratic reform that must be followed by several other steps under the external and internal challenges and the changes in the scales of the international forces, maybe we must pay attention that this step has opened the road in front of the member of the people’s and state consultative councils, the national and democratic forces, political parties and the civil society organizations to demand the necessity of making substantial modifications on some of the texts of the constitution so that authority alternation can be achieved in reality.
The people’s council must modify clause no. 76 of the constitution so that citizens could elect a President and a Vice-President for him directly, all citizens, political forces and parties must have the right of election, and clause no. 77 of the constitution that specifies the presidential period with six continuous years must also be modified into two presidential periods only.
In addition to the modification of the clauses no. 62, no 74, no. 78, no. 84, no. 87, no. 93, no. 106, no. 108, no. 148 and no. 189, so that the authorities of the President could be separated from the legislation authority, and so that the request of the President could be consistent with the principle of the authority alternation.
A new clause should be added to the constitution that allows citizens to have a quarreling with the President, in addition to modifying the political rights pursuing law no. 73 for the year1996 to guarantee citizens rights in free election and participation.
The center is ambitious to have a democratic country, which make it request the President to have another step forward to push the democratic, social and economic reform process by presenting a quest to the people’s council to stop using the emergency law before the date of it’s expiry in February 2006, as Egypt is witnessing a constant state after the violent acts have stopped since 1997, but the government still insists on the continue of the state of emergency using insubstantial excuses like fighting drug lords and activities that threaten the political stability, but the state of emergency should be announced only for five reasons “armed war, being threatened by it, extreme internal disorder, catastrophes, epidemics” and what the government is using as excuses can be dealt with the normal law and the natural judicial authorities without the use of exceptional courts and procedures.
Therefore, the center sees that these important steps made by the President, must be followed by ending the state of emergency, and other necessary steps on the road of democratic reforms in all of the political, economic and social fields, like the freedom to forming political organizations and syndicates, respect the basic human rights, including freedom of opinion, thought, belief, peaceful gathering, protesting and striking, without any discrimination between citizens because of religion, sex, social status or party membership.
And this will also require releasing all of the opinion prisoners and detainees, stop torturing citizens, deepening and encouraging the spirit of dialogue and indulgence, support the civil society foundations and guarantee citizens rights in personal safety and a decent life, to guarantee the progress of our country toward a better tomorrow and a world free of violence and social, economic and political crisis full of freedom and fairness for everyone.