If you happen to glance at the local news in Egypt of late, one particular story has been unavoidable, serving as the nexus for much local anger and debate. No, I’m not referring to the constitution, though that debate is still going on, to be sure.

With almost no preludes, the Egyptian government surprised everyone by suddenly announcing a decision several weeks ago to shortly begin implementing mandatory shop-closing hours across the nation. The law-to-be (which could be passed instead as some form of administrative decision to avoid politically implicating President Morsi, who currently wields legislative powers) was due to close shops, cafes and restaurants between 10 p.m. and midnight, while establishments with a touristic license would get exemptions. The stated rationale was that this could save around 6 billion Egyptian pounds ($1 billion) in public spending, while cutting down on electricity consumption, as the country was still reeling from a significant power-outage problem over the summer. However, it appears at least half the population angrily opposes the law, including pretty much the entire political opposition.

There are three main sets of problems with the proposed law, all of which are symptomatic of a greater problem that I wish to highlight here. The first set of problems relate to the details of the proposed law, the alleged merits of which have been challenged across the board by politicians and experts alike. In fact, several convincing arguments have been made that this law — at least in its current form — could actually lead to higher consumption of electricity, in addition to heightened challenges in traffic and security, as well as a horrendously timed decline in tax revenues that could have been used to finance improvements in electric-power grids, production and efficiency.

The second set of problems, and the ones that cause me the greatest concern, deal with the incredibly inadequate preparation for the decision. As Egypt is a country well known to remain quite lively late into the night, and as it is going through very uncertain times, such a decision would have, as mentioned above, profound economic, social, security and other macro and micro effects. In such an environment, a government should engage in a wide and transparent public dialogue before reaching this type of decision. Through such dialogue, the government would identify problems and solicit solutions, including qualitative and quantitative analyses that would aid its decision-making. Officials could potentially run limited pilot programs on local levels and — especially if the final decision remains so profoundly transformative — only enact it through a parliament whose members are willing to take political responsibility. None of that took place in the case of this decision, however. Rather, it was foisted on the public quite suddenly, and virtually all justifications of it thus far by the government have been widely criticized as insufficient. Moreover, the proposed regulations would be adopted unilaterally — either through administrative or presidential action — rather than awaiting an elected parliament.