AS IF MEMBERS OF the Peoples Assembly dont have enough pol-icy issues to fight over, the 2003-2004 legislative session that ended late last month saw them in a new quandary of sorts over the voluptuous pop sensation Ruby.

As one journalist who covers the PA for a national daily put it, MPs spent almost as much time arguing about whether to ban the performers provocative video clips from state TV as they did mulling over items actually on their agenda.

Ruby and recriminations over the 2010 World Cup disaster aside, the session saw a flurry of activity, with the soon-to-resign cabinet of Prime Minister Atef Ebeid trying to cushion the impact of its January 2003 decision to float the Egyptian pound.

With MPs focus squarely on economic and reform issues, the most significant laws rammed through Parliament dealt with investment, the banking sector and taxes. (For more on the likely impact of the states tax grab, passed after barely a day of debate, see Tax Insects Invade! page 52.)

Its no surprise that the government of Atef Ebeid spent much of this session attempting to pass laws that might improve the economy and encourage foreign direct investment, says Walid Gamal Eddin, a lecturer in economic policy at the American University in Cairo.

When the economy is dealt a serious blow, as was the case with the floating of the pound, the government often responds by passing laws that it believes will improve the situation by increasing transparency which, in turn, will increase the level of confidence investors have in the Egyptian economy, Gamal Eddin says.

Among the most important of those passed was the Unified Banking Law (Number 101 of 2004), which places all public- and private-sector banks under closer supervision by the Central Bank of Egypt (CBE); it also clarifies issues relating to the CBEs duties and lines of command under a separate presidential decree.

It reorganized the banking sector, including increasing the Central Banks capital to LE 1 billion and setting the minimum capital for private banks at LE 500 million, explains Gamal Eddin. It also set what are known as the KYC [Know Your Client] guidelines, which are designed to [guarantee banks keep adequate information about their] clients in order to prevent money laundering and loan defaults. It also states that some official appointments with all banks are subject to the approval of the Central Bank in order to monitor their profiles and activities.

The government hopes that passing the KYC, coupled with other measures including the hotly anticipated mortgage system, might spur banks burned by profligate lending in the late 1990s to grow their corporate and consumer loan portfolios.

The Unified Banking Act was passed in conjunction with Presidential Decree Number 64 for 2004, which outlines the powers and responsibilities of the CBE and establishes clear reporting and oversight mechanisms for the banks chairman and board of directors.

Also on the financial front, the PA passed several laws (again supplemented by presidential decrees) designed to attract foreign investment and encourage domestic business leaders.

Among them: Law 13 of 2004, which amended provisions for investment guarantees and incentives set out in the powerful Law 8 of 1997. Once again, this law was to generate confidence among investors, both domestic and foreign, says Gamal Eddin. At the same time, it more closely monitors the actions of investors to avoid fraud.

This session saw MPs debating status legislation as well. When it is finally implemented, Law 10 of 2004 will govern a new court system under the Ministry of Justice to deal exclusively with family-related cases, including paternity testing and custody rights.

This court is very much about trying to find middle ground within feuding family units, explains lawyer Mohamed Zaki. It is also expected to cooperate with social workers, which we imagine will resemble the manner in which social workers in the West deal with cases. They make visits where they observe the family situation, then make a recommendation to the court.

It still remains to be seen which cases will be eligible or how they will make it to family court. Also unclear is how judges might be appointed to the new system. The past few months have seen the courts abuzz with rumors that a number of women would be appointed to the family court bench, but no appointments have yet been made.

According to Zaki, the Ministry of Justice is now screening several female lawyers who might be candidates for appointment to the new court, setting them up to join Supreme Constitutional Court Justice Tahani El-Gibaly, the nations first female juror, on the bench.

Meanwhile, the new Unified Labor Law (Law 12 of 2003) came into effect in the second half of this session. The law was first drafted more than two years ago to bring the nations Socialist-era labor practices in line with the capitalist principles the economy now claims to embrace.

Until this new law came into effect, Egypts labor law dated back to the Socialist era, where much of the power lay with the Ministry of Labor and the employee, explains Fatma El-Razaz, a professor of law at Helwan University. This new draft shifted much of the power from the hands of the employees to those of the employers by giving them the right to end the contract of any employee with minimal distress, she explains.

Before, it was literally next to impossible to fire someone.

The law also legalizes labor action while stopping short of guaranteeing workers the right to strike. El-Razaz welcomed the new labor laws steps to grant working mothers new rights. Working mothers now have the right to take a full two years of unpaid leave following their paid maternity leaves. (Maternity leave provisions are largely unchanged under the new law.)

Looking ahead to the fall 2004-2005 legislative season, the only sure bet for discussion is the draft citizenship law promised by President Hosni Mubarak. Activists expect the law will grant Egyptian women married to non-Egyptian men the full right to pass on Egyptian citizenship to their children.

Although Egyptian women have technically had the right to do so under the existing citizenship law, such requests were rarely granted, and only then in cases in which the woman could prove that both of her parents were Egyptian citizens. The same law prevents women from passing citizenship on to children deemed to have mental or physical handicaps. Egyptian women married to Palestinians were similarly forbidden from passing on their nationalities.

However, on September 11, 2003, Minister of Interior Habib El-Adly announced he would actively consider applications. Several thousand women have since passed on their nationality to their children.

El-Adlys decision was followed by President Mubaraks announcement that a new citizenship law would be drafted and proposed in the PA in 2004. No one is actually sure what the new draft law will look like since no one outside the Ministry of Justice has been included in the drafting process. et