References: Law No. 40 issued in 1977, modified by law No. 177 issued in 2005.

Peer Review Comments: There are coalitions of CSO's that monitor the elections, in addition to the Egyptian National Council for Human Rights.

References: Law No. 173 issued in 2005 concerning undertaking political rights.

The judiciary sentence passed by the administrative court on Nov. 16, 2005, based on articles 19 and 29 of the universal declaration of human rights and the international declaration for human rights defenders, 1998.

Peer Review Comments: The decisions of this committee are protected from any kind of appeal.

On Nov. 6, 2005, the administrative judiciary court passed its sentence that considered domestic monitoring to be one the safeguards of the fairness of the elections, the correctness of the procedures, citizens' awareness, the protection of human rights, and the right of CSOs to monitor the electioin process in all its stages. The sentence also freed CSOs from the need to obtain the consent of the national council of human rights to monitor the elections.

References: Law No. 173 issued in 2005 concerning undertaking political rights.

The sentence passed by the administrative court on Nov. 16, 2005, based on articles 19 and 29 of the universal declaration of human rights and the international declaration for human rights defenders, 1998.

Peer Review Comments: This point relates to the appointment of the president and the members of the Supreme Commission of Elections, regulated by Law No. 173 of 2005. Article 3 of the law stipulates the membership of this Commission as follows:

- The Minister of Justice as the president - Three current judges selected by the Supreme Justice Council - Six public figures not belonging to any party, four selected by the People's Council, and two by the Shura Council. (At least two of these public figures must be former judges). - A representative of the Ministry of Interior

With the exception of the positions of the Minister and the member from the Ministry of Interior, the commission should have a fair level of independence from the executive branch. However, especially considering the conflict that broke out between the judges and the government after the elections of 2005, it is hard to tell if the members of this Commission are independent from the government; especially considering that it includes judges, who make up at least 5 members of the Commission, a representative of the Ministry of Interior, with a cabinet minister as the Commission president.

Peer Review Comments: Elections are monitored by the Supreme Committee for Elections.

Prominent among these criteria were participating in previous elections (presidential or party elections), belonging to the same district, favoring women observers, having legal awareness and not belonging to any party. Observers also had to pass the training given to them and to sign the ethical code that entails neutrality and objectivity in monitoring.

References: The Report for the National Campaign for Monitoring the Parliamentary Elections 2005, edited by Waheed Abd-Al-Majeed, The Human Rights Centre for Helping Prisoners, 2006, p. 10.

Peer Review Comments: Elections are monitored by the Supreme Committee for Elections.

Following the elections cycle, the election monitoring agencies or entities make comprehensive reports containing analyses of the different aspects and results of the election process as a whole.

All election monitoring agencies or entities issued final reports on the 2005 parliamentary elections shortly after the declaration of the election results.

References: The Egyptian Association for Promoting Community Participation, "Political participation in 2005 representative elections", 2006. The Human Rights Organization for Helping Prisoners, "Report of the domestic campaign for monitoring elections", 2006. Ibn-Khaldoun Center for Developmental Studies, "Report of the independent commission for monitoring elections", 2006 The Civil Observatory for Human Rights, "Report of the civil observatory for human rights on the representative elections", 2006. Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies, "Information report on the parliamentary elections", 2006.

Peer Review Comments: Elections are monitored by the Supreme Committee for Elections.

The role of these agencies was only restricted to observing, documenting and disclosing these violations in their reports. Even the judges, who were given the authority to supervise the election process, with all their legal power that allows them to take legal action, were not able to impose penalties on offenders mainly because of the conniving facets of the system.

On Nov. 22, 2005, the judges club held a meeting, in which they required the armed forces (military) to secure the election process based on article 26 of Law No. 173 issued in 2005 concerning undertaking political rights that gives the head of the higher commission for elections the authority to demand policemen or military forces, if necessary, to secure the election process.

References: The Report of the National Campaign for Monitoring the Parliamentary Elections 2005, edited by Waheed Abd-Al-Majeed, The Human Rights Centre for Helping Prisoners, 2006, p. 10.

Peer Review Comments: Elections are monitored by the Supreme Committee for Elections.

Among these mistakes are the similar names in the voter registration tables. The ratio of these errors were as much as 60 percent in the 2000 representative elections. Repeated names is another error that allows people to vote more than one time. Police deliberately omit certain names by what is called "virtual death".

The most serious defect in the voter registration process is the phenomenon known as "collective registration" in which high government officials and candidates of the ruling party move the names of their employees to their electorates. This is made possible by the deliberate misuse of the permission the Law No. 73 published in 1956 , which gives voters the ability to change their electorates. Collective registration gives way to interest conglomerations in elections, which in turn gives way to inheriting representative seats. In the last legislature election these errors were massively exploited by the candidates of the ruling party.

References: The Egyptian Association for Promoting Community Participation, "Political participation in 2005 representative elections", 2006, p. 33.

The law gives citizens the opportunity to appeal to the administrative and cessation courts against election results and to contest the legislature membership.

Courts accept several appeals. But these judgments are not usually implemented. For example, both the courts of administrative judiciary and cessation passed sentences that abolished the membership of more than half of the ruling party (the patriotic democratic party) in 2005 legislative election, but the legislature refused to apply these sentences based on the claim raised by the legislature that it alone has the authority to determine the correctness of its members, a phenomenon known in media reports as "the legislature is the master of its decision".

This makes all court decisions concerning elections valueless. However, the majority of the ruling party decides to abolish the membership of independent or opposition members, two thirds of the members are soon in place to dismiss those members.

References: Dr. Ahmed Thabet, The Conference on Reform and Change in Egypt, Nov. 20 to 21, 2006, p. 3.

In the new constitution a new article was added that gives the legislature the authority to determine its membership. According to that article, the court of cessation can only examine the appeals presented to it by the legislature, and even its decisions are not obligatory. These decisions are sent back to the legislature which can consider them for 60 days. Overall, membership can only be abolished by the legislature itself by the consent of the majority. The legislature selectively uses this authority to keep candidates of the ruling party and to dismiss independent and opposition members.

References: Promoting Democracy Group, Mechanisms and obstacles of the parliamentary work, a field study, p. 147.

The 2005 legislative elections, like all elections in Egypt at all levels, witnessed massive interventions by the security forces. All election reports documented the immense intervention by the security forces.

The basic intervention of the security forces is often to help the voters support the candidates of the ruling party and to terrify and prevent the voters who support opposition or independent candidates, even by explicit force. As a result of this clear bias and intervention, the last legislative elections in 2005 had several violent clashes between voters and security forces in which many citizens were arrested or killed.

The last Shoura (consultation) witnessed a widespread prevention of all voters from entering election centers, whether they were supporting candidates of the ruling party not. Preventing voters from entering election centers forced judges supervising electorates to get out to help voters vote. Security forces beat and insulted many judges and prevented them from getting to the election centers. In response, the chairman of judges' club (a syndicate association of the Egyptian judges), counselor Zakariya Abd Al-Aziz, threatened to call the military to keep peace. He based this on article 26 of Law No. 73 issued in 1956 that gives the head of the higher committee for elections the authority to call the police or the military if necessary to keep peace in election centers. But the military did not really intervene.

References: The report of the national campaign for monitoring the parliamentary elections 2005, edited by Waheed Abd-Al-Majeed, The Human Rights Center for Helping Prisoners, 2006. The report of the independent campaign for monitoring elections, 2005. The report of the civil coalition for monitoring elections, 2005. Article 26 of Law No. 73 published in 1956 concerning undertaking political rights.

Instead it sees that judicial supervision of more than 13,000 judges and the popular, civil and media monitoring (tens of domestic CSOs and NGOs and media channels both domestic and international) are enough to establish the fairness of the election process (in 222 electorate consisting of 30,741 secondary centers and 329 general centers). C

onsequently, all monitoring was restricted to Egyptian human rights organizations on the condition that they obtain the consent of the National Council for Human Rights (a governmental agency). On Nov. 16, 2005, the court of administrative judiciary issued a ruling that affirms the independence of Egyptian CSOs and NGOs and their right to monitor elections without obtaining the approval of the council.

References: The report of the national campaign for monitoring the parliamentary elections 2005, edited by Waheed Abd-Al-Majeed, The Human Rights Center for Helping Prisoners, 2006, p. 81. The report of the independent campaign for monitoring elections, 2005. The report of the civil coalition for monitoring elections, 2005.

These violations ranged from being arrested, threats, dismissals from election centers and electorates as a whole, seizing identity cards and monitoring permission cards. All these violations were made by security forces and affiliates of the ruling party to be able to forge votes in the absence of observers. The higher committee for elections headed by the minister of justice did not take any action to put an end to these violations.

References: The report of the national campaign for monitoring the parliamentary elections 2005, edited by Waheed Abd-Al-Majeed, The Human Rights Center for Helping Prisoners, 2006, p. 81. The report of the independent campaign for monitoring elections, 2005. The report of the civil coalition for monitoring elections, 2005. The report of the shadow committee for monitoring elections, 2005.