Bishop Aziz says constitution draft changed after vote

Bishop Antonios Aziz, representative of the Catholic Church on the draft constitution committee, has accused the committee head of modifying the document after its passage Sunday.

During a Tuesday night dinner event, Aziz is reported to have lashed out at Amr Moussa, head of the 50-member committee. The event was organized by Egypt’s Armed Forces to celebrate the amendment of the 2012 Constitution.

The committee voted on the draft document over two days, passing the amended document late Sunday. The draft was delivered to interim President Adly Mansour on Tuesday. The president is required to call for a referendum on the constitution within a month.

State-owned Al Ahram, on its news portal, reported that church representatives claim that the final draft includes two modifications to the constitution’s preamble that were not in the draft that they voted on.

Committee spokesperson Mohamed Salmawy, however, denied Wednesday reports that changes had been made to the draft, Middle East News Agency reported, saying that the preamble and the articles read out by the head of the committee during the voting sessions are the same ones that were handed in to the President.

Aziz is quoted as saying that the portion of the preamble that describes Egypt has having “a civilian rule” has been changed to read “civilian government.”

In the document now in circulation, Sharia is named as Egypt’s main source of legislation. The church representative, however, said that the document he voted on included an additional line stating that there are other sources of legislation as well.

One of the disagreements that slowed the work of the constitution committee was the inclusion of “Sharia” in the preamble. Islamist members of the committee insisted on its inclusion while church representatives threatened to withdraw from the committee if it was included.

Despite attempts to calm the bishop down, Aziz was reported to have gone on to accuse Moussa of changing the draft after it had been voted on.

Safwat al-Bayady, the committee’s Protestant Church representative, was quoted by Al-Ahram as saying that a “forgery” had occurred.

The confusion may have stemmed from Moussa’s reading of the text prior to the vote.

While reading out the preamble during the first session of voting  Saturday, Moussa read out the section in question as: “We write a constitution that continues building a democratic modern state, with a civil government.”

However, after receiving complaints, Moussa corrected himself, saying that it should be stated as “civil rule,” but only after the preamble had already passed unanimously. 

“This is a clear matter, and our majority believes in this,” Moussa added before proceeding to vote on the articles of the constitution.

In the final draft released by the committee on its official website Monday, the section in question states “civil government."

Also in the draft issued by the committee, the second section now under dispute reads: “We write a constitution that asserts that the principles of the Islamic Sharia are the main source of legislation and that the references in interpreting them are the court orders issued by the Supreme Constitutional Court in this regard.”

Former parliament member Mostafa al-Naggar commented on the news on his Twitter account, calling the reported sudden change in the draft “laughable.”

“This raises the question: who made these modifications in the dark and who wrote [the constitution]?” he asked.

Naggar noted that the changes are not trivial as they relate to the civility of the state and sources of legislation.