Via the BBC: Egypt’s parliament convenes despite dissolution
Egypt’s parliament has briefly convened, despite the ruling military council ordering it to be dissolved.
The country’s new President, Mohammed Mursi, had ordered the assembly to meet in defiance of the ruling.
Earlier, the council said the decision to dissolve parliament must be upheld. The military closed parliament last month after a supreme court ruling.
[…]
Speaker Saad al-Katatni said that by holding the assembly, MPs were not contradicting the dissolution ruling “but looking at a mechanism for the implementation of the ruling of the respected court. There is no other agenda today”.
The MPs approved Mr Katatni’s proposal that the parliament seek legal advice from a high appeals court on how to implement the supreme court’s ruling. He then adjourned the session.
Some lawyers also believe that parliament has now effectively handed its power to the president, taking it away from the military, says the BBC’s Jon Leyne in Cairo.
An interesting, smart, if tentative, move. It showed some defiance without sparking a full blown crisis and attempts to put the ball back in the court’s court (so to speak).
In regards to the last sentence quoted above, the story does not make it clear at all how a transfer of power from the parliament to the legislature took place (or how it could have done so).
