By Marwa Al-A’asar
CAIRO: The Administrative Court referred Thursday the lawsuit calling for granting expatriate Egyptians the right to vote in the parliamentary elections to the Supreme Constitutional Court.
The court is expected to look into Article 12 of the Law for Practicing Political Rights before deciding on a ruling.
Article 12 dictates that the electoral domicile of a citizen registered at an Egyptian consulate abroad is the last venue where s/he lived in Egypt before traveling. As for Egyptians working aboard ships, their electoral domicile is the port where the ship is registered.
“Traveling or immigration does not rule out the right of the citizen to [his or her] citizenship…and voting is one of these rights,” said Nasser Amin, head of the Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and Legal Profession.
Earlier in October, Minister of Migration and Manpower Aisha Abdel-Hady announced that Egyptians abroad will have the right to vote in the next presidential elections due to be held in 2011.
However, Mohamed Kamal, a senior ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) member, said in media statements a few days later that it would be difficult to allow Egyptians to vote in the People’s Assembly (PA) elections due on Nov. 28.
Kamal said that Abdel-Hady, also a senior NDP member, meant that the issue would be looked into but a decision has not been made.
“There has been a general fear towards the political awareness of Egyptian expats…[who] took a decision to be part in electing their president,” Amin told Daily News Egypt.
“All these democracy advocates live outside the authority of security bodies in Egypt…and [most of them] live within democratic environments,” he added.
