Maat holds a workshop on the draft local administration law

Aqeel calls on parliament to quickly pass a law establishing the National Authority to Supervise Elections

Aqeel: The closed absolute list is the most appropriate way to represent all groups in the localities

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The Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights, which holds the consultative status of the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations, held a workshop on the draft local administration law, and a number of jurists, leaders of civil society organizations and former members of the local popular councils of Cairo governorate participated in the workshop. This is within the framework of a preliminary discussion of the draft local administration project, which was developed by the Foundation’s Policy Analysis Unit, to be discussed extensively by a group of policy experts, legal experts, researchers and legislators later this month within the framework of the “Universal Periodic Review as a tool for improving public policies during the transitional phase.” ”, Which is implemented by the Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights with funding from the European Union over the course of 2016-2017.

The workshop opened with a speech by Professor Ayman Akil, President of the Maat Foundation, during which he reviewed the activities of the Foundation in general, especially its efforts in the UPR file over the past years, in addition to presenting the most important recommendations made to Egypt by the member states of the United Nations Human Rights Council and the state's position Egyptian of those recommendations. In the same context, Ms. Fatima Othman, Project Manager, presented the UPR project, its activities, objectives and expected results to be achieved over the life of the project.

The training workshop sought to put forward the draft law for an initial discussion through a focus group consisting of a group of legal experts, leaders of civil society organizations and researchers in preparation for extensive discussion of the law later this month to introduce final amendments to it, publish it and send it to the competent government agencies.

The dialogue was moderated by Mr. Muhammad Hanafi Al-Shintnawi, Director of the Policy Analysis Unit at the Foundation, where articles of the law were discussed and opinions and proposals were exchanged on some of the articles and the method of election. The most important outcomes of the workshop included the amendment of some articles of the draft local administration law, which gave the people's councils broader powers within the framework of the Maat Foundation's support for decentralization and good local governance. The attendees also demanded that the selection of governors to be appointed should be conditional on the approval of two-thirds of the members of Parliament.

In a related context, Aqeel called for the local elections to be held under the full supervision of the National Elections Authority in line with the constitutional articles and under its full supervision, with the necessity that the election be with an absolute closed list system in order for the local people's councils to be represented in proportion to what the constitution has approved of fair representation for all groups of society .

Please visit the official project page for more updated information:  www.fb.com/UPR.Egypt2016

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