The parliament’s sixth legislative phase was characterized by special features, the most important of which were its concurrence with the onset of the economic reform program in Egypt, with all that program’s challenges and ambitions, and its need for the existence of a legislative treatise capable of guaranteeing its launch and handling the incompetence it might encounter early on. Another special feature of this phase was its concurrence with the onset of the third term of President Hussni Mubarak as well as with seriously dangerous regional and international events such as the Gulf War and the assembly of the Peace Conference in Madrid.

The parliament discussed and approved during the sixth legislative phase 921 draft laws, among them 192 diversified ones and 729 financial and final budget account laws. These laws covered various economic, social, cultural, employment, political, and security domains, though the economic domain received the largest share (the number of draft laws relating to it was 66), which seems natural in light of the launch of the economic reform program. It is noteworthy that the petrol sector received the highest share of economic draft laws (65).

Notably, none of the five meetings in the sixth legislative phase lacked draft laws focused on the required concern for social issues and lacking determination to avoid the side effects of economic reform policies, particularly on fixed and limited income groups. Examples in this regard are the following: draft laws on the report on government employee bonuses, salary raises, and amending the provisions of the laws of social security, social guarantee, and medical insurance systems. This is in addition to several laws that address a number of vital fields: laws governing leading civic duties in the administrative government and public sector bureaus; the government sales tax law; the law on the preservation of historic ruins; the law on eradication of illiteracy and continuing education; the law amending some of the provisions of the copyright law and regulating supervision of art works; the financial market law; the law amending part of the text of the penal code; the law on political parties’ systems; the law on amending some of the provisions of the law of the civil government employees system; the law of unified tax, the law of international commerce arbitration; foreign currency exchange law; unified environment law, law on financial loans, amending some of the provisions of the law of the Advisory Council and amending some constituencies; amending some of the provisions of the law specifying constituencies by the parliament.

The number of draft law proposals submitted by members in the sixth legislative phase was 101, and 49 of these were discussed by the parliament.

These draft law proposals addressed laws of certain causes, the most important of which were related to syndicates and unions, to tax exemptions, to government employees, amending the law of the legal profession, to economic and investment issues, consumer protection, agriculture and land reclaim, press authority issues, and the law of mayors and sheikhs.

Parliament members belonging to the National Party (the majority party) constituted the majority of those submitting draft law proposals (49 members versus 11 independent members and 2 from the At-Tajammu’ Party).

The parliament discussed, throughout the sixth legislative phase, 13 decree-laws distributed over the meetings of the first session (8 decree laws), the fourth session (3 decree laws), and the fifth session (3 decree laws). No decisions regarding laws were presented before the parliament in its second and third sessions.

The decree laws address topics related to armed forces (6), the exercise of political rights (5), amending some of the provisions of judicial authorities, banking, and of account secrecy in banks.

The parliament examined, during its sixth legislative phase, 394 agreements. The topic-specific committees prepared reports that address, through study, agreements’ legal, economic, political, and social aspects. The committees attached to these reports some specific recommendations. After thoroughly examining the agreements submitted to it, the parliament concluded in referring back some agreements to the specialized committees for further study and examination. The number of agreements referred back to the committees was two in the first session, three in the second, one in the third, two in the fourth, and two in the fifth.