12 Official Journal – Issue No. 22 (bis) on 03 June 2013 may be explained separately, yet, such explanation should be based on understanding its significance, in order to achieve consistency, not contradiction, between them. Whereas Article 38 of the Constitutional Declaration issued on March 30, 2011, amended by the Constitutional Declaration issued on September 25, 2011, under which the elections were held, 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 combines both the closed-party list system and the individual electoral system, at the ratio of two thirds for the former, and one third or the latter.” The significance of the wording of that provision, in light of the principles of equality, equity, and the rules of justice, was that limiting candidacy for the membership of the Shura Council within the two thirds allocated for closed-party list electoral system to members of political parties was set against limiting the right to candidacy for the remaining one third allocated for individual system to independents who were not affiliated with political parties. This is because the constitutional legislature adopted this division to establish intellectual and political diversity within the Shura Council, so that the Council, in its final formation shall represent society's visions, all its varied spectra, streams, and inclinations, and encompass them, so that they play an effective role in the Council’s performance of its constitutional duty provided in Article (37) of the Constitutional Declaration. What contradicts this aim is the course taken by the legislature in the provisions appealed against, where they limited candidacy for the two thirds allocated to election by the closed-party list system, to those affiliated with political parties, as confirmed by the provisions of Article 8, para.4, of Law 38/1972, replaced with Decree Law 109/2011, which stipulates that "The respective authority of the relevant party/parties shall handle the candidacy procedures of such candidates through submitting an application using the High Elections Commission form." However, the legislature did not make the application for the remaining one third allocated for the individual system limited to independent candidates unaffiliated with political parties. It was rather left open for competition among independents and political-party candidates, contrary to what the constitutional legislature intended, as expressed by Article (1) of the Decree Law 123/2011, by repealing the provision of Article (5) of Decree Law 120/2011, and confirmed by the rest of provisions appealed against – as mentioned previously. Hence, the legislature gave political party candidates two opportunities for winning the membership of the Shura Council, one through closed party lists, and the second through the individual system candidacy. Nevertheless, the only opportunity that was given for independent candidates not affiliated with those parties was limited to the one third allocated to the individual system, where they are competed against and rivaled by candidates affiliated with 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. However, this is not available to independent candidates unaffiliated with any parties, violating Article (38) of the Constitutional Declaration, and poses an infringement of the content, elements, and guarantee of right to candidacy. It, also, discriminates between two classes of citizens, violating the principles of equality and equal opportunity, as it entails discrimination between the two classes in treatment and in the opportunities available to gain membership, without this discrimination being, in all its aforementioned aspects, justified by a subjective rule related in origin to the nature of the right to candidacy and the requirements for practicing it, through which and with which equality and equal opportunity are achieved. This is in addition to the course of the legislature representing a violation of the bases of justice, which are