How Egypt’s uprising changed the
structure of governance? Initially, the uprising began on Police Day as a
protest against the abuses committed by the security forces. Eventually, it
left the police less feared than before and less respected than ever. Mubarak
stepped down and turned power over to military (Supreme Council of Armed
Forces) that dissolved the Parliament, dismissed Mubarak’s last prime Minister
and changed the Supreme Constitutional Court Law allowing the Court more
independence and the next president less influence in choosing its Chief
Justice. In this sense, it would seem that both the military and the judiciary
were the two institutions that continued to exist after the uprising.
It was the military that was
assigned to drive the country through the transition process. It took major
decisions in terms of setting the road map regarding the elections and the
constitution. However, like any other military, Egypt’s military did not have
the experience to make political decisions and therefore it made major
mistakes. One critical mistake was salvaging the 1971 Constitution despite the
majority voting to just amend its problematic articles. Another critical
mistake was designing the elections law in an unconstitutional way that led to
dissolving the lower chamber of the Parliament and creating a legal threat to
the upper chamber too.
The Judiciary played two roles
through reviewing the legality of major steps and supervising the voting
process. Its power of judicial review led to decisions that were not welcomed
by some political parties such as the decision to dissolve the first
Constituent Assembly assigned with drafting the constitution and the decision
to dissolve the lower chamber of the Parliament. Its task to supervise the
voting process started with the March 2011 Referendum, then the parliamentary
elections for the two chamber, and ended with the presidential elections that
resulted in Mursi winning.
On July 2012, President Mursi
took oath before the Supreme Constitutional Court to start exercising his
powers. The Main source of these powers is the March 2011 Constitutional Decree
that allowed the military the legislative and executive powers until electing a
parliament and a president. However, after dissolving the lower chamber of the
parliament and one day before announcing the name of the President Elect, the
military issued another Constitutional Decree (June 2012) keeping some
executive and all legislative powers. Later on, Mursi dismissed his senior
military officers and issued a Constitutional Decree (August 2012) revoking the
one issued by the military.
In brief, the “System of
Governance” as mentioned in Part V of the 1971 Constitution ended up with the
executive and legislative powers in the hands of the military and the judicial
powers in hands of the judiciary (considering the Supreme Constitutional Court
part of it). Now, with Mursi in office holding both executive and legislative
powers, the doctrine of separation of powers seems to be at risk. As the head
of the executive, he repositioned the military to be "theoretically" part of the executive
branch again and at the same time he declared that he would exercise the
legislative powers only if necessary. However, his clash with the judiciary, as
I will explain later, represents a serious threat to the doctrine.
