Egypt Court Challenges New President’s Reopening of Parliament

Egyptian President Mohammed Mursi’s order to reconvene parliament has been rejected by the highest court, which says its ruling that led to the assembly’s dissolution is binding.

The speaker of the dissolved house has already responded to Mursi’s decree, calling on lawmakers to meet on Tuesday.

Army units outside parliament have left and some lawmakers have gone in.

The decision by President Mursi, whose Muslim Brotherhood has most seats, sets up a potential showdown with the military.

Lisa Mullins gets the latest from reporter Noel King in Cairo.

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Lisa Mullins: I’m Lisa Mullins and this is The World. Egypt is in the midst of a political showdown between its new Islamist President and the military. President Mohammed Mursi has ordered the dissolved Egyptian parliament to reconvene. The elected body was disbanded a month ago by the country’s ruling military council. Today Egypt Supreme Court sided with the generals. They rejected Mursi’s order. The court said that a previous ruling, declaring the election of parliament unconstitutional, was final. Reporter Noel King in Cairo says that the court also acted to preserve its own authority.

Noel King: What the Supreme Court is trying to say is, “We are still in charge. What we say goes.” And that means Egypt’s Parliament is not a constitutionally elected body. What this means on the whole is that we’re being set up for a confrontation between the President Mohammed Mursi and the judiciary of Egypt.

Mullins: OK, so what does it mean for today then? Is Egypt’s parliament able to convene or not?

King: The speaker of Egypt’s parliament has said that the body will meet at 12 noon tomorrow and we expect that they will indeed go into the court. We did see something very significant this afternoon. Ever since the parliament was dissolved a month ago, there have been army units positioned outside of the parliament building. They are there to keep anyone including the now out of”¦ or parliamentarians from entering the building. Now today those army units were pulled back. And what this suggests to us is that we’re now seeing perhaps a diminished prospect of a very embarrassing and public conflict.

Mullins: So it appears now that the military council SCAF still has a significant amount of power in Egypt. What is within its round of jurisdiction?

King: What SCAF is in charge of it’s basically everything. And in the absence of a parliament SCAF is the legislative authority in Egypt. SCAF is in charge or has oversight over the national budgets. SCAF have control over their own affairs. What Mohammed Mursi appears to attempt to be doing here is exercising a bit of his own authority, flexing some political muscle, and saying all of these questions about whether or not I’m just a figurehead, whether or not the real authority is still in the hands of the ruling military council. Those questions are illegitimate. I am the democratically elected President of this country and I plan on moving forward in that vein.

Mullins: Does that amount to more than words?

King: Muhammad Mursi and the ruling military council are cutting deals behind closed doors. So again and again we feel as if we’ve been set up for a very public confrontation. We feel as if that confrontation is being litigated or played out in the national press and in the international press. And then at the end things have a tendency to calm down. One of the other very striking things that we did see today it’s worth noting. Mohamed Mursi went to a graduation ceremony for military cadets. The man he was seated next to is Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi, the man who he’s supposed to be at political odds with.

Mullins: So for General Tantawi though, what would be his motivation and the military council, SCAF’s motivation to dissolve parliament in the first place?

King: The ruling military council’s entreasing Egypt have always been economic. One of the things that really displeased the ruling military council about this elected parliament was that the parliament was comprised mainly of Islamists, of members of the Muslim Brotherhood Party and the even more conservative Salafist Party. Those two groups had vowed that they were going to go after economic corruption. Now, the army is well-known to be at the center of a lot of that economic corruption. So the military’s interest in general seems to be protecting its economic interest, making sure that nobody has the authority to challenge them on that level.

Mullins: How well does the average Egyptian function under this kind of dissent among the authority figures in Egypt?

King: I think that’s really the critical question here. As I said this continues to be litigated in public, in the press, and the result is the Egyptian public is enormously confused and they are extremely worried. It’s worth noting that this dissolved parliament wasn’t very popular in the first place because they hadn’t gotten anything done. And I think what Egyptians want on the whole is for this country to turn itself around economically. That can’t happen if we’re going to continue on with this kind of political chaos.

Mullins: All right, speaking to us from Cairo, Egypt, reporter Noel King. Thank you.

King: Thank you.

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