Ramallah – Ma’an – Participants in a dialogue meeting in Ramallah, organized by the Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (MUSAWA), stressed on Wednesday the importance of unifying the justice system in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, by adopting mechanisms in this regard, in addition to taking measures to prevent interference in the judiciary, and imposing penalties on those who do so.

The President of the Supreme Sharia Court, Dr. Maher Khadir, pointed out in his intervention during the meeting, which came under the title ‘Prospects and Mechanisms for Reforming and Unifying the Justice System (Judiciary and Prosecution)’, that unifying the justice system in the two parts of the country after the division is essential, adding ‘There is no doubt that the independence of the judiciary, and the non-interference in its work and influence on it, comes from the principle of separation of powers and the rule of law.’

‘There is no doubt that there are problems and imbalan
ces that the justice sector suffers from, especially the judiciary and the prosecution, in terms of unifying the system between the two parts of the homeland. After Hamas took control of the government in the Gaza Strip, there are now two judicial councils and two public prosecution bodies, one of which is attached to the judiciary in Gaza, and the other in the West Bank, which split the judiciary and prosecution into two halves, and this resulted in a violation of constitutional and legal rules, which affected the protection of rights and freedoms, and the preservation of the safety of society.’

He provided an overview of the experience of the Sharia judiciary in unifying work in the two parts of the country, shortly after the start of the Israeli aggression on the Gaza Strip, based on a mechanism established for this purpose.

He suggested some recommendations to unify the justice system, including issuing a clear text prohibiting interference in judicial affairs, which should include a penalty for anyone
who does not comply with this, in addition to restructuring the Supreme Judicial Council and expanding its membership to create a unified and shared judicial environment, and so on.

Ashraf Abu Hayya, the legal advisor of Al-Haq, made an intervention on behalf of civil society institutions, in which he pointed out that talking about, or suggesting that the judiciary was fine before the division, is an out of place issue, considering that it was not a priority for the two main movements in the Palestinian political scene, which made the judiciary the subject of conflicts and a struggle over powers and influence, which continues to this day.

He reviewed the stages that the judiciary went through since the establishment of the National Authority, up to the issuance of the Judicial Authority Law, and the amendments that were made to it, indicating that the law has not yet been tested in a real way, before addressing many of the problems that imposed themselves on the judicial scene.

He focused on the demands of
civil society institutions, particularly human rights institutions, during the past period, to reform and develop the justice system, including the restructuring of the Supreme Judicial Council, noting the dominance of the political file over the entire Palestinian situation, including the judiciary.

He urged the formation of a national committee to conduct the broadest dialogue at the national level, and to issue a binding report, which would include agreement on the nature of any judiciary that the Palestinian people want, and the necessary mechanisms, taking into account the reconstruction of the justice system in the Strip, as a result of what happened to it due to the Israeli aggression.

At the beginning of the meeting, Ibrahim Al-Barghouthi, the policy and legal advisor to ‘Musawa’, indicated that it came as a continuation of the press conference that the center recently organized in Ramallah, to announce the results of the seventh legal observatory/national report to survey the opinions of society on
the performance of the justice system on the eve of the war on Gaza and to show the change in the status of justice in Palestine (2021-2023). He explained that the observatory highlighted the existence of a consensus on the need to unify the justice sector, so it was necessary to research this issue by specialists, to determine the necessary mechanisms in this regard, and hence the organization of the event.

Source: Maan News Agency