Thousands in Tahrir Square back Morsi's decree

Egypt high court overturns Morsi's decree reinstating parliament Egypt's High Constitutional Court (HCC) Tuesday issued a verdict suspending President Mohammed Morsi's Sunday decree reinstating the People's Assembly (parliament's lower house) – a verdict that could mark the beginning of a tense new chapter in Egypt's ongoing parliamentary saga.
In mid-June, the HCC declared the law that governed last year's legislative polls to be unconstitutional. One day later, Egypt's then-ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) ordered the dissolution of the People's Assembly.
Morsi's executive decision on Sunday to restore parliament's lower house – one of his first acts as Egypt's first freely-elected head of state – was met with both praise and condemnation, with many legal experts questioning the move's legality. The Egyptian Judges' Club, an informal grouping of judicial officials, unleashed a fierce attack on Morsi and his executive decree.
"We are giving Morsi a 36-hour grace period to backtrack on his decision. Otherwise, we will have to take a much firmer response, which we will announce at the appropriate time," said Judge Ahmed el-Zend, chairman of the Judges' Club late on Monday.
For its part, Egypt’s presidential office on Tuesday evening declined to issue a statement in response to the latest HCC verdict. The presidency spokesman Yasser Ali merely stated that Morsi’s decree to reinstate the parliament's lower house was based on a desire to maintain a functioning parliament during the current critical juncture in Egypt's history.
Earlier, the president's office asserted that Morsi's decision did not conflict with the HCC verdict that led to the dissolution of the Islamist-led People's Assembly, but only with the SCAF's subsequent decision to dissolve it.
Pro-Morsi demonstrators gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square on Tuesday afternoon for a scheduled million-man march in support of the president's reinstatement of parliament's lower house, after hearing of the news by the HCC ruling calling for the suspension of Morsi's decree.
The HCC issued its latest verdict while the People's Assembly was already convening for the first time after the presidential decree. The parliament speaker Saad el-Katatni closed the session within minutes, deciding to send the HCC ruling on the legality of the members of parliament to the Appeal Court.
He announced that sessions won't resume until the Appeal Court interprets chapter 40 of the March 2011 constitutional declaration in relation to the standing of members of the lower house of parliament, but it is still unknown what the parliament's next step is after Morsi's decree was judicially suspended.
Morsi's decision created a big debate between Egypt's legal and constitutional scholars. The prominent constitutional scholar Dr Tharwat Badawi implied that President Morsi is currently the only legitimately elected authority who has the right to ignore the constitutional declaration, as well as the right to ignore the decree issued by Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, SCAF's head, to dissolve the parliament as ruled by the HCC.
Badawi told Arabstoday that the HCC has no powers except to judge the constitutionality of the laws, which is limited to ruling whether the legislative texts assigned to it by the administrative, civil or criminal courts are constitutional or not.
The constitutional scholar added that President Morsi’s decision to reinstate the dissolved parliament was viable. The constitutional declaration, he said, has no legal value as claimed by SCAF which has no legitimacy itself, neither by elections nor based on the fallen constitution, adding that former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak had no authority to assign or delegate SCAF to rule the country because ruling the country "is the people’s right and not Mubarak’s."
Former president of the HCC, Farouk Sultan attacked the decree issued by Morsi saying: "In light of the HCC’s ruling regarding the elections law violations of the constitutional declaration, then President Mohammed Morsi’s decree is 100 percent void."
Immediately after Morsi issued his decree, Sultan put out press statements to say that the return of the parliament "has neither legal nor constitutional relevancy, as well as it violates the law and the constitutional declaration announced by SCAF after taking the responsibility of ruling the country following the ousting of Mubarak" adding:  "The decision is void and contrary to legal and constitutional norms."