 the court's general assembly or the chief justice. When the SCC issued a number of liberal rulings that threatened the regime's basic interests, Mubarak used his appointment powers to implement a court-backing plan that changed the court's liberal majority with justices loyal to the regime. Of the 19 justices who currently serve on the SCC, 13 including the chief justice were appointed since late 2001. It was noticeable that one of the first decisions of SCAF was to change the legislation of the court to allow the selection of the chief justice through seniority from within justices currently serving on the court. The generals believe that this provision will function as an insurance policy against the elected governments in the future. It is not farfetched to assume that the parliamentary majority would be interested in having a say in who sits on the high bench. The selection procedures of the SCC are likely to be debated in the constitute assembly.
Anyone who would have argued a year ago that Egyptians would be immersed in these complicated matters of constitutional engineering would have been rejected out of hand as either uninformed or a wishful thinker. Nevertheless, the process of political transition to democracy and the rule of law started and writing a constitution is an integral component of it. Transition is a complicated and even turbulent political process with many setbacks. Egypt's political hangs in the balance at this juncture. Egyptians need to come to terms about the nature of the system in the second republic.
The three issues of civil-military relations, religion and the state, and the nature of political systems are critical to Egypt's political future. As for the role of the army in politics, exempting the generals from all civilian control would undermine the democratic future of the nation. On the other hand, ensuring full civilian control over the armed forces, as the case in established Western democracies, seems difficult at least in the short term. The safer and more realistic route is creating a constitutional design that ensures a degree of political accountability but maintains the institutional independence of the armed forces. This can be achieved through a collaborative decision-making process in which a national security council that includes both officers and policy and is instrumental in matters related to national defense broadly defined.
In terms of the role of Islam in politics there is also room for compromise. Most Egyptians, while they want their religion to be part of the political process and the constitutional framework, are not supportive of an Iranian-style theocratic state. Article 2 could be maintained with an added provision that guarantees the rights of non-Muslim Egyptians to be treated equally. A number of different proposals have floated around over the past few months, and, with some fine tuning, a compromise that satisfies most Egyptians could be reached.
As for the nature of the political system it seems that there is a convergence among the main political players about a variant of a French style semi-presidential system. The structural details about the composition, powers, and terms can all be negotiated to reach a common ground. While I am not arguing that this critical matter is going to be easy, it could be done with a bit of imagination and benefiting from the experiences of similar constitutional redesigning in the recent past.
Egypt's constitutional design is not only vital for its political future and development but also for the broader Arab world. If the largest Arab country is able to attain democracy and political stability, this will provide greater incentive for other young men and women yearning for liberty in the other basins of tyranny in the region. Negotiating Egypt's democratic future is not going to be easy or swift and setbacks will happen. Nevertheless, with accommodation and political maturity, many of the discrepancies discussed here can be solved and Egypt can embrace a political future drastically different from its long past.
1. SC