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Official Gazette, Issue 24 App (a) on 14 June 2012
hence the true meaning of Article 3 of the Constitutional Declaration is realized,
which does not grant public authority to one class, excluding the other, nor impose the
authority of one group over the other. Within this framework lies the value of multipartisanship as a constitutional purpose towards deepening the concept of democracy
that offers political parties a role in national action that exceeds the margin of
confidence granted by the voters to their candidates who compete with others
according to subjective rules unlimited by a creed of any sort, and unrestricted by any
form of affiliation, whether political or apolitical, and so that all citizens who fulfill
the conditions set for this, would have the same chance – through which they
influence, equally between themselves – the shaping of national policy and the
determination of its final features.
This is confirmed by the fact that Constitutional Declaration does not include a
provision compelling citizens to join political parties, or any coupling of the
exercising of political rights related to the right of candidacy and suffrage, to a party
affiliation, which indicates the necessarily to establish the freedom of a citizen to join
or not a political party, and to exercise their indicated political rights through political
parties or away from them. Undoubtedly, the principles of equality and equal chances,
which are the primary fundamentals and principles concerned in the matter,
necessitate one legal treatment for all candidates, on the basis of equal opportunities
for all, with no discriminating based on party affiliation. Discrimination in that case
shall be based on the difference in political opinions, which is a matter prohibited
constitutionally. The partisan system should not become a burden on freedoms and
public rights originating from it, one of which is the right to candidacy, which is one
of the public rights stipulated by the nature of parliamentary democratic systems, and
imposed by its main cornerstone which is based on submitting to the authority of the
people, in accordance with the provision of Article 3 of the Constitutional
Declaration.
Whereas it is established that the interpretation of the Constitutional Declaration
articles shall be by considering them a unit, each complementing the other, and that
the meanings evolving from them should be interrelated with each other in a way that
wards off any discordance, with no provision interpreted separately from the other
provisions, but should be interpreted in cohesion with them and understood in a way
that would bring harmony between them and distance them from any contradiction.
Whereas Article 38 of the Constitutional Declaration issued on 30 March, 2011,
amended by the Constitutional Declaration issued on 25 September, 2011, provides
that: “The law shall regulate the right to candidacy for the People's Assembly and the
Shura Council according to an election system that includes the closed party list
system, and individual seats voting system, at the ratio of two thirds for the former,
and one third for the latter.” The significance of the wording of that provision, in light
of the principles of equality and equal opportunity and the rules of justice, was that
limiting candidacy for the membership of the People's Assembly within the two thirds
allocated for closed party lists voting system to members of political parties was set
against limiting the right to candidacy for the remaining one third allocated for
individual voting system to independents who were not affiliated with political
parties. This is because the constitutional legislature adopted this division, aiming to
establish intellectual and political diversity within the People’s Assembly, so that the
Assembly, in its final formation shall represent society’s visions, all its varied spectra,