The Arab Spring, as it is now globally called, from its inception represented a strong desire of the people to reclaim for themselves the political system by improving the Constitution. Whether it was Tunisia, Libya or Egypt or the different factions in the political arena itself, the focus of everyone’s demands was projected onto the process of Constitution-writing. It is this major departure from previous upheavals in the Middle East that makes Arab Spring a very special moment in Middle-Eastern history. And by placing emphasis on the current exercise of Constitution-drafting as an exercise of realizing the society’s expectations, we give the movement the dignity it deserves.
It is not surprising that in an age of globalization, the majority of the viewers of the Arab Spring on media channels are not from Middle-East. These viewers are mostly from countries with an established tradition of liberalism and democracy who watch daily the comparison of the nascent Egyptian Constituent Assembly with the robust institutions that have developed in their own countries. This is clearly a fallacy, for how can a new democracy, either in its vision or implementation, compare to democracies that have been established, if not less, then atleast for half a century. Most importantly, this is not how the Egyptians themselves look at the whole process which culminated in the referendum. They do not have in their mind the German Constitution, the Indian Constitution and even less, the American Constitution (the present German and Indian Constitutions are about 60 years old whereas the American one is over 200 years old). They remember what the arbitrary and corrupt regime established under their previous Constitution, that is, the 1971 Constitution, when they engage in debate to shape the new one. And in order to truly appreciate the significance of the entire movement, we must look at the Constitution that was ousted.
The Constitution of 1971 also envisaged a democratic system, guaranteed fundamental rights and declared the Sharia as principal source of legislation. However, the constitutional provisions were sold out by the laws that were enacted by the executive with the help of a rubber-stamp legislature.
The Fundamental Rights (such as freedom of speech and liberty) were qualified by phrases like “according to the law”, whose vagueness created room for the regime to completely deny these protections through the enactment of rigid laws. The entire constitution was an act of skullduggery with all the major rights and provisions being subordinated to laws and thus subverting the very idea of a society having a constitution.
The year 2007 saw Mubarak attempting to become democratic by offering to democratize the society. But why was Mubarak of all people democratizing the society? And if Mubarak democratized the society, then what is happening since the last two years? Besides a slew of amendments, the key amendment was Article 76, which was a 709 word article whose sole purpose was to engineer one of Mubarak’s sons to the Presidency by creating a very high technical requirement in terms of support of officials and registered parties to contest elections. This article also served the purpose of preventing any Muslim Brotherhood member or any other person who could put a serious challenge to the regime from contesting the elections.
It is these reasons that made people wary of the regime and the 1971 Constitution. And it is these actions that have become the background against which the Egyptians are judging their new Constitution.
The next entry will continue the discussion, dealing with role of religion, civilian-military affairs and the nature of State institutions in 1971 Constitution.
References:
http://www.constitutionnet.org/files/Egypt%20Constitution.pdf
http://muslim-academy.
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