A second petition was filed yesterday demanding the election be frozen until Sept 18, when the constitutional court is scheduled to issue its explanation on the ruling it issued on June 16.
The administrative court, whose rulings can be challenged, immediately set July 7 to look into the first petition filed by lawyer Adel Abdulhadi who insisted that the election process will be illegal if it is held under the current scenario.
Acting on behalf of a voter, Abdulhadi based his petition on a clause in the constitution stipulating that the Cabinet must include at least one elected member from the Assembly. There can be more than one.
In the current Cabinet, Minister of Social Affairs and Labour Thekra Al-Rasheedi, who was elected to the Assembly on Dec 1, 2012, is the elected MP. But her membership was nullified after the constitutional court nullified the election because of a constitutional violation.
Abdulhadi argued that accordingly there is no elected MP in the Cabinet, which makes illegal and all its decisions illegitimate. One of the most important decisions the Cabinet recently issued was approving an Amiri decree setting July 27 as the date for parliamentary polls.
The lawyer stressed that since the Cabinet’s makeup is illegal, its decisions are illegitimate and if the election is held, it will be challenged in the future and this could lead to nullifying the next Assembly which will be the third to be scrapped since June last year.
The administrative court has the power to freeze the election or cancel it altogether, but its verdicts can be challenged before the court of appeals and the supreme court.
In the second petition, Jassem Al-Enezi demanded that the court suspend the election until the constitutional court looks into a request filed by him last week asking the court to explain parts of its key ruling issued on June 16 which dissolved the Assembly but upheld the controversial amendment to the electoral law.
The constitutional court has set Sept 18 to issue its decision on the request and can simply decline the request. Enezi said that the election should be frozen until the court has issued the explanation which could impact the election procedures and process.
