their rights were limited to the portion allotted for the individual candidacy system, in which political party members also competed. Article 1 of the Constitutional Declaration affirmed that Egypt is “a democratic state based on the principle of citizenship,” and thus affirmed the importance of the rights to candidacy and suffrage. Regulation of those rights must be subject to and consistent with the Constitutional Declaration, including the principle of equality before the law. The SCC stated that although Articles 3 and 4 of the declaration establish a multi-party system in Egypt based on popular sovereignty, the declaration does not discriminate between citizens in their exercise of the rights of candidacy and suffrage based on political affiliations or political opinions: Within this framework lies the value of multi-partisanship 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. The SCC further stated that the principles of equality and equal chances “necessitate one legal treatment for all candidates, on the basis of equal opportunities for all, with no discriminating based on party affiliation.” As such, the SCC ruled that allowing party candidates to compete with independents for individual candidate seats provided undue advantages for political party candidates who could compete for all seats, whereas, individual candidates were limited to onethird of seats under the first-past-the-post system where they competed against candidates belonging to political parties, “who enjoy the financial and moral support of the parties to which they belong, which exploit all their available capabilities in supporting them.” The SCC concluded, because this constitutional defect affected the two-thirds of PA seats elected through closed party lists and individual candidate seats contested by independent and partyaffiliated candidates, “the formation of the whole assembly is null and void since it was elected.” Therefore, the SCC ordered the PA to be dissolved “without the need for any other measure.”13 The SCC did, however, add that the laws, decisions and procedures taken by the PA to date “shall retain their validity” and “shall remain correct and enforceable” unless annulled or amended or ruled unconstitutional by the SCC. The SCAF’s June 2012 Addendum to the Constitutional Declaration Three days after the SCC issued its decision dissolving the PA, and on the same day polling ended in the second round of the presidential election, the SCAF issued an addendum to the March 2011 Constitutional Declaration (see Annex 1) reinforcing the SCAF’s authority over the armed forces, and retained its legislative authority until a new parliament could be elected. The addendum also addressed the Constituent Assembly tasked with drafting a new constitution. Article 60(B) of the addendum provided that if the Constituent Assembly elected by the joint sitting of the PA and the SC “encounters an obstacle that would prevent it from completing its work,” the 13 Some have argued that only the elections for individual candidate seats should be regarded as invalid, although, as noted above, the SCC’s judgment expressly stated that elections for PR seats were also invalid. IFES Page 5 of 18