Al-Masry Al-Youm: After long hours of article-by-article voting on the Egyptian constitution by the Constituent Assembly, the draft was passed on early Friday.

The current draft has been submitted to President Mohamed Morsy, who in turn will put it up for a referendum, the conditions of which remain unknown in the wake of a recent crisis between the president and the judiciary.

However, the draft follows a tumultuous and unresolved writing process, with many non-Islamist members of the assembly quitting in objection to the non-representative nature of the document. More than 22 members of the 100-strong assembly withdrew, including church representatives, liberal and left-leaning party figures and others.

Several of the articles passed have been a matter of contention. Egypt Independent attempts to identify articles that raised concerns amongst experts in the corresponding fields. On aggregate, the current draft is criticized for not bearing enough safeguards to uphold freedoms, bestows too many authorities upon the president in a way that disrupts the division of powers and generally relies on legal arrangements in critical unresolved matters to evade the lack of consensus over the current draft. [Continue reading…]