The House of Representatives has failed to take action regarding a court verdict issued in July that would see the substitution of member of parliament Ahmed Mortada Mansour with politician Amr Al-Shobaky, following the revelation that the vote count for parliamentary elections was erroneous.
As a result, Al-Shobaky accused the parliament of stalling his admission into the House of Representatives during a televised interview with Al-Ghad channel on Monday. Moreover, his lawyer Islam El-Dabh told Daily News Egypt Tuesday that they can sue the parliament.
“We are studying the possibility of filing a lawsuit against the parliamentary speaker for abstaining from implementing the final court verdict,” El-Dabh said. “According to the Penal Code, a public official who does not apply a court verdict risks dismissal, prison time, and fines.”
While the Cassation Court annulled the parliamentary membership of Mansour, son of the notorious president of Al-Zamalek FC, it also established that a re-examination of the voting cards proved that the results were in favour of Al-Shobaky.
Thus, the court granted Al-Shobaky parliamentary membership, without requiring new elections to take place in the constituency of Dokki/Agouza where both candidates ran for the position.
Although a constitutional article states that the Cassation Court has the final say in annulling parliamentary memberships and that the parliament is obliged to follow its decisions, the second part of the verdict raised controversy inside the parliament.
The parliamentary committee of Legal and Constitutional Affairs examined the court verdict and decided that Mansour’s membership should be nullified. However, the committee did not reach a conclusion on Al-Shobaky’s step up to the position of MP.
Al-Shobaky stated in the interview that he was not officially contacted by the committee or by Parliamentary Speaker Ali Abdul Aal.
El-Dabh said that Mansour claimed to have filed a challenge to the verdict but assured that he has not officially been informed of any scheduled sessions to look into it. “There is little chance that any challenge would be accepted, because the verdict was issued by the highest court. These are usually rare cases, such as those involving death penalties,” he explained.
As the parliament’s first legislative year will end in September, El-Dabh fears that the issue will be delayed until the second year.
Meanwhile, the court’s obligatory decision implies that any participation by Mansour in the parliament would be illegitimate.
