Egypt’s newly elected Senate held its procedural opening session, on Sunday, with new members being sworn in, and the Senate’s Speaker and deputies elected.
Judge Abdel Wahab Abdel Razeq won the internal election for the Speaker role, with 287 votes. He said that the Senate will discuss several pending laws in the coming period.
Abdel Razek was appointed as a deputy in the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC), Egypt’s highest judicial court, in 2011, before being appointed as its Chief in May 2016. Prior to this, he held several high-ranking judicial positions, and had worked as a legal consultant to the Kuwaiti Cabinet between 1992 and 1998.
The Senate, which was created in accordance with constitutional amendments approved last year, will act as an advisory chamber to the House of Representatives. It will sit in place of the Shura Council, the upper house of Parliament that was dissolved in 2014.
Two-thirds of the members are elected via the individual and closed party list systems, with the rest appointed by the President. The Senate’s first five-year term is due to end in 2025.
