Law permitting party members to stand in individual constituencies in parliamentary election may be unconstitutional, says Supreme Administrative Court.

The legality of Egypt's recent People's Assembly election has been called into question by a Cairo court.

The Supreme Administrative Court on Monday referred several articles of the parliamentary elections law to the State Council – a legal body tasked with deciding on disputes regarding the exercise of state power – which will then request a decision from the High Constitutional Court regarding their compliance with the constitution.

The court will decide if it was constitutional that party members stood for election in the one third of seats reserved for individual candidates in the recent People's Assembly election.

Article three of the law permits party members to run in individual candidacy seats, not just party list seats. The article was added to the law because it was thought that to restrict some seats to non-party members would breach equal opportunity legislation.

The majority of parliament's individual candidacy seats are occupied by members of the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and the Salafist Nour Party.