Member of Parliament Ahmed Mortada Mansour, candidate for the Free Egyptians party, said he has the right to appeal the court decision on his dismissal, in a press conference on Wednesday.
The Court of Cassation disqualified Mansour as an MP Wednesday, after a recount of the votes proved that his opponent, Amr El-Shobaky, had garnered more support.
During the conference, Mansour impugned the court decision, referring to several articles of the judicial plea law. He said: “The law gives me the right to appeal the decision and request that the final verdict be reviewed, in the case that the requester has definitive documents against the verdict that were not earlier submitted or in the case that the court decided to take an action that was not requested by the opponent.”
He claimed that his opponent did not submit any complaint to the court within 48 hours of the results being announced. He went on to say that Al-Shobaky instead submitted a complaint against former candidate Al-Sayed Gohar, who competed against Al-Shobaky before the run-off.
Further, he said that the court’s verdict relies on law 24/2012 which is now invalid as it was replaced by law 45/2014. This law outlines the role of the Cassation Court in deciding the legality of memberships for parliament and the Shoura Council.
Mansour and Al-Shobaky saw a tense face-off in the election run-offs in October 2015, after which Mansour was announced the victor by a slim margin. This came as a surprise as preliminary reports from the polls suggested that Al-Shobaky would win.
The duo also competed in parliamentary elections in 2012, in which Al-Shobaky prevailed.
