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Moreover, like some recently created European constitutional courts, the Supreme Constitutional Court has consistently held that the constitution must be interpreted as an organic whole (Johansen 1997: 365). In this regard, the third President of the _al-Mahkama ad-Dustūriyya al-'Ulyā,_ Muhammad 'Aī Balīgh, stated that "the straight completion of the constitutional building will rise through this organic unity which characterizes the order of constitutional norms. This unity will realize the congruity of the texts of the constitution and it will remove the obscurity that may be mixed with it and the contradiction with which people may think it mayto be afflicted with. MoreMoreover, this court has this organic unity in mind whenever a case put before it is connected with an internal contradiction, which the contestant pretendsportends to see between the legal texts he contests and the norms of the constitution. The investigation into the existence or non-existence of this contradiction is not achieved by simply returning to those constitutional texts only of which it is said that they contradict the legislative \[_qānūniyya_\] texts. Rather, one has to appeal \[_bi-l-ihtikām ilā ahkām ad-dustūr_ _jam'ihā_\] to all the constitutional norms so that the Court may make sure that the contested texts do not contradict each other." (Al-Ahkām allatī asdarathā al-Mahkama min yanāyir 1984 hattā dīsambar sanat 1986, Dār al-Hannā li'l-Tabā'a, Cairo 1994, 4). In the process of an organic interpretation, the Court has identified a handful of meta-principles that implicitly provide the unifying thread for all constitutional principles. Among these the Court has singled out four that are of particular importance, e.g. an overarching principle requiring Egypt to remain "democratic" (see e.g. Al-Ahkām allatī asdarathā al-Mahkama min Uktūbar 1981 hattā Dīsambar sanat 1983, Dār al-Hannā li-t-Tabā'a, Cairo, no date, 131/ 144; Al-Ahkām allatī asdarathā al-Mahkama min yanāyir 1984 hattā dīsambar sanat 1986, Dār al-Hannā li-t-Tabā'a, Cairo 1994, 360; Al-Ahkām allatī asdarathā al-Mahkama min yanāyir 1987 hattā'āhar yunyū sanat 1991, Matābi' Dār Akkhbār al-Yawm, Cairo, no date, 98 et seq.) and to respect the separation of powers, and a commitment to ensure that Egyptian law respects the "rule of law" (see e.g. Supreme Constitutional Court's Deputy Chief Justice's article Omar Sherif 2002: 318-319). |
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Although the Supreme Constitutional Court took surprisingly bold stands on most political issues, there were important limits to the Courts activism. At odds with its strong record of rights activism, the Supreme Constitutional Court ruled Egypt's emergency courts (al- mahākim at-tawāri') constitutional (cf. al-Mahkama ad-Dustūriyya al-'Ulyā 1984: 80), and it has conspicuously delayed issuing a ruling on the constitutionality of civilian transfers to military courts. The qānūn at-tawāri' (Emergency Law) allows for referrals to those exceptional courts, and the military ruler - i.e., the President of the Republic or his designate - can refer civilians to military courts (al-mahākim al-'askariyya). The judges in such trials are officers appointed by the Minister of Defence who have no independence but are rather subordinate to the top-down authority structure of the military establishment (Hassan 2010; Moustafa 2008: 153). However, the Supreme Constitutional Court reasoned e.g. that since Article 171 of the Constitution provided for the al-mahākim at-tawāri', there it must be considered a legitimate and regular component of the judicial authority. Moreover, it also reasoned that the provision of Law 50/1982, giving the al-mahākim at-tawāri' the sole competency to adjudicate their own appeals and complaints, was not in conflict with Article 172 of the Constitution. Given that Egypt has remained in a perpetual state of emergency for all but six months since 1967, the al-mahākim at-tawāri', and more recently, especially after the upsurge of Islamicist Islamist violence in 1992, the al- mahākim al-'askariyya have effectively formed a parallel legal system with fewer procedural safeguards, serving as the ultimate regime check on challenges to its power (Moustafa 2008: 151 et seq.; Saleh 2004: 81; Brown 1997: 114).
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Lifting the state of emergency, which would abolish the emergency court system, as well as ending the trial of civilians before al- mahākim al-'askariyya, would be a further important step upgrading the rule of law and in balancing the imbalanced separation of power concept in Egypt (Dunne 2006: 12). A clear separation between the judiciary and the executive has still not been achieved. Both the Minister of Defence - as mentioned above - and the Minister of Justice continue to exercise considerable authority over the judiciary (Omar Sherif 1999: 35, 38 et seq.). If the powers of the President have decreased following the amendments, he still keeps the most important ones, be it in the executive (see Article 137, Article 148 and Article 150 of the Constitution), legislative (See Article 108, Article 109, Article 112, Article 113 of the Constitution) or even judicial fields where he is the one who nominates the general prosecutor, the presidents of the Court of Cassation and of the Supreme Constitutional Court, and is the head of the council of judicial bodies. Moreover, although the powers of the parliament have increased, it has to be seen whether the two assemblies dominated by the ruling party Hizb al-Watanī ad-Dīmuqrātī will put substantial modifications in the draft budget to table. Though they were introduced as strengthening the balance of powers (Risālat ar-Ra'īs Mubārak, 26 December 2006). the constitutional amendments have not procured major changes in the distribution of powers within the executive authority itself and between the executive and legislative ones. Nevertheless, the reform package could constitute the basis of continuative further revisions in the future.
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