Maat concludes her community discussion about the National Elections Authority

“Training of lawyers in defense in electoral disputes, maintaining judicial supervision of elections, and cooperation with civil society organizations” most important outputs

In conjunction with the current community dialogue sessions held by the House of Representatives, the Foundation concluded Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights (Egypt) The hearing is about "Draft Law of the National Elections Authority"Sunday evening, corresponding to June 4, 2017, where the session hosted a select group of political party leaders, parliamentarians, members of specialized national councils, leaders of civil society organizations, academics, researchers and experts in the Egyptian electoral issue.

The fourth session comes for a project The Universal Periodic Review as a Tool to Improve Public Policies during the TransitionAs part of the Foundation’s efforts to put forward a set of policy proposals and legislative alternatives in line with the recommendations of the UPR 2014, as the project funded by the European Union during 2016/2017 seeks to help the state fulfill its obligations before the international mechanism, and to strengthen the capacities of various stakeholders to advocate and engage in efforts Human rights reform and related public policies.

Where it included the most important amendments that I suggested Public Policy Analysis and Human Rights UnitOn the draft law that was sent to the House of Representatives and the concerned authorities in March 2017, the commission shall assume the tasks of controlling and monitoring attempts to influence voters, facilitate the participation of persons with disabilities in electoral processes, approve penalties in cases related to electoral violations, strengthen cooperation with civil society organizations, and establish The Institute for Studies and Training of the Authority, which is concerned with building the capacity of the concerned parties to deal with elections.

While the session emphasized that the electoral process is an integrated and continuous process, and it is a culture that everyone must be involved in changing, its most important proposals included building the capacity of lawyers to defend in disputes related to electoral affairs and establishing permanent legal committees, adopting electronic voting to avoid the current defects of the electoral process, Establishing companies that grant the privilege of advertising in the elections, provided that they are registered with the Tax Authority and with the National Elections Authority in order to control the spending ceiling, the necessity to allow parliamentarians to work at the national and public levels instead of being preoccupied with local issues in their constituencies. The session also shed light on the fact that some practices Violations of voting days are related to violations by the judiciary themselves.

In the end, the session recommended the continuation of judicial supervision of the elections to ensure its integrity, not limiting the formation of the National Elections Commission to members of the judicial bodies, opening up to civil society organizations more and involving them in the follow-up of elections and referendums more effectively, and the need to extrapolate the views of society in the process of drawing up laws and not drafting them In isolation from society.