An Egyptian panel began voting Saturday on a new constitution intended to pave the way for a return to elected rule after July’s military overthrow of President Mohammad Mursi.

An Egyptian panel began voting Saturday on a new constitution intended to pave the way for a return to elected rule after July's military overthrow of President Mohammad Mursi.

If adopted, the charter will be put to a popular referendum early next year in the first milestone of the military-installed government's transition roadmap, to be followed by presidential and parliamentary elections in mid-2014.

Voting on the 247 articles began with 48 members of the 50-member panel in attendance, and was expected to continue Sunday, said Amr Mussa, the head of the panel and former foreign minister under Hosni Mubarak, who was toppled by a pro-democracy uprising in 2011.

Within the first two hours the panel approved the first 50 of the 247 articles of the draft charter, including one stipulating that Islamic Sharia law will be the main source of legislation. This clause has been retained from the Mubarak-era constitution.

After the army ousted Mursi in July, Egypt's interim rulers suspended the 2012 constitution, which had been hastily drafted during his year in power by a panel dominated by Mursi's Islamist allies.

The roadmap stipulates that a referendum on the constitution be held by the end of the year, but officials have said it is now expected in the second half of January.

The panel includes representatives from civil society, political parties, institutions such as the army and police, and the Coptic church.

But it includes just two Islamists, neither of whom is from Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood, which won a series of polls following Mubarak's ouster but has in recent months been the target of a sweeping crackdown that has seen more than 1,000 people killed.
Mussa told reporters earlier that the panel "reached an agreement on the entire constitution which has been extensively revised" from the one adopted under Mursi.

But rights groups and activists criticized the draft, particularly Article 203, which would allow military trials of civilians accused of "direct attacks" on the armed forces, a provision they fear could be applied to protesters, journalists and dissidents.
The article says that "no civilian can be tried by military judges, except for crimes of direct attacks on armed forces, military installations and military personnel."
  
Secular activists have demonstrated against Article 203, and security forces arrested prominent activist Alaa Abdel Fattah this week for an unauthorized demonstration against military trials of civilians.