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Egyptian Saad al-Kattatni (R) speaker of the parliament, holds a session of the Egyptian parliament in Cairo on July 10, after Egypt's top court rejected a decree by President Mohamed Morsi to reinstate the parliament. (-/AFP/GettyImages)
Egypt’s lower house of Parliament convened Tuesday despite the country’s highest court saying a day earlier that the legislative body is dissolved and cannot reassemble.
House Speaker Saad al-Katatni from the Muslim Brotherhood party said, “We are gathered today to review the court rulings, the ruling of the Supreme Constitutional Court,” reported Al-Jazeera.
“I want to stress, we are not contradicting the ruling, but looking at a mechanism for the implementation of the ruling of the respected court. There is no other agenda today,” Katatni said.
A few minutes after Parliament opened, Katatni sent the Supreme Constitutional Court’s ruling to the country’s Appeal Court, reported the state-run Al-Ahram newspaper.
The fate of the People’s Assembly has become the focal point in a power tussle between the interim government of the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) and Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood President Mohamed Morsi who was elected at the end of June.
A day before that election, the high court had dissolved the Muslim Brotherhood dominated Parliament citing unconstitutional issues with the seat distribution.
Last Sunday, Morsi unilaterally announced he would be reinstating the Assembly, which prompted the high court to issue a decision that its original judgment could not be reversed.
Morsi went ahead and convened Parliament Tuesday.
Leftist and liberal party members boycotted Tuesday’s parliamentary session. Some opponents chanted, “Down with the leader of the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule,” according to Al-Ahram.
