Egypt’s top constitutional court has ruled to halt all verdicts on an islands transfer deal until it makes a decision on the constitutionality of the agreement, state media said.
Wednesday’s ruling came a week after Egypt’s Parliament backed plans to hand over two uninhabited Red Sea islands to Saudi Arabia under an accord that has attracted widespread public criticism, Aljazeera reported.
President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi must still ratify the agreement.
Parliamentary leaders and government lawyers say the House of Representatives is the only entity allowed to rule on matters of sovereignty, but it has been opposed by one court.
On Tuesday, an Egyptian court ruled that previous judicial decisions in favor of transferring the two islands were invalid, according to a judicial official and a lawyer.
The government says the two islands, Tiran and Sanafir, belong to Saudi Arabia but had been leased to Egypt in the 1950s.
On Tuesday, an administrative court ruled that all judicial decisions taken to date by the urgent matters court would be considered invalid.
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