CAIRO: Egypt’s top court was on Tuesday to rule whether Egypt’s Islamist-dominated Senate should be dissolved as well as on the validity of a panel that wrote the country’s controversial constitution.

In advance of the landmark rulings, dozens staged a sit-in overnight outside the Supreme Constitutional Court (SCC) on the banks of the Nile in Cairo, as riot police formed a cordon around the building.

Two-thirds of the Senate, the 270-member upper house known as the Shura Council, were elected in a vote early last year, with one third appointed by President Mohamed Morsi in December.

Following several lawsuits arguing there were irregularities in the mechanism of the election, the court is to decide whether or not the Upper House—which was given temporary legislative power —is legal.

The court will also rule on the legality of an Islamist-dominated panel that drafted the country’s constitution which is at the heart of the nation’s worst political crisis since the overthrow nearly two years ago of president Hosni Mubarak.