2019-10-10

Gaza Strip and West Bank

Human Rights Defenders / West Bank / Gaza

MUSAWA Conducts Two Discussion Sessions in Both the West Bank & Gaza Strip to Discuss its latest Publications

MUSAWA- The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession organized two discussion sessions on Tuesday, 10/10/2019, and Wednesday, 2/10/2019, to discuss MUSAWA’s latest publications, which include issues No. 23 and 24 of Eye on Justice Magazine, issues No. 33 and 34 of Justice and Law Journal, and the 5th issue of the Legal Monitoring, at the center’s headquarters in both Gaza and Ramallah, attended by 22 participants, including 6 female lawyers. 

The Legal Monitoring Officers, Adv. Angham Mansour and Adv. Roula Mousa opened the sessions by welcoming the attendance and introducing the importance of such meetings in the joint development of the center's publications to promote a legal message that has a tangible impact on the performance of the formal justice system and to understand the gaps within the issues. Following the introduction, a representation addressed the essence of the centers’ publication, including the “Justice and Law" journal, which promotes commenting on judicial decisions and judgments, encourages legal dialogs and draws the attention of the legislator to the weaknesses of the legislation and how to address them, and the “Legal Monitor”, whose importance and significance lies in providing indicators and ratios that reflect the opinion of the Palestinian society in the justice system and the level of confidence in it, and the "Eye on Justice" magazine, which is considered one of MUSAWA’s tools to monitor and document violations of the law, the right to the a fair trial and its guarantees, equality before the law and the judiciary, access to justice and actions taken by MUSAWA to address them through demanding the non-reputation of such violations and abuses and the prosecution of the perpetrators administratively and/or criminally in accordance with the provisions of the law and the nature of the violation.

The audience participated in commenting on the content of the issues and expressing their opinions on ways to develop them to achieve their desired objectives. In the Gaza office, Lawyer Kamal Hegazi made an intervention on the ways to develop MUSAWA’s publications, saying: MUSAWA has a set of effective monitoring tools, noting that most opinion polls show that individuals are more affected by audio communications means, thus, MUSAWA needs to keep up with the new media and use effective media tools to disseminate its vision and positively influence the public opinion, emphasizing that ensuring that an issue is properly addressed can be through promoting it to the public through effective legal communication tools, suggesting that MUSAWA publishes its issues in a more flexible manner, by using graphics to communicate certain messages, or by preparing a short video addressing certain legal violations.

At first, Adv. Wissam Kodeih, a legal advisor at the Ministry of Justice, elaborated on the need to develop systematic mechanisms for electronic publication of MUSAWA’s releases, to prepare radio and television interviews to promote them, and to present MUSAWA’s achievements concerning each publication through press conferences.

Then, Adv. Nasser Daloul, a member of the Lawyers for the Rule of Law Group “Friends of MUSAWA”, pointed out the need to continue providing paper versions of the issues, especially since they target judges and lawyers, so that they can keep them and use them as references.

In his intervention, Ali Shaqoura, a legal researcher at Al-Dhameer Association for Human Rights, called on human rights institutions to use new publication methods and not to dispense with paper printing, noting that MUSAWA needs to involve the decision-makers in the writing of its publications, proposing the establishment of a legal coalition that includes human rights institutions, journalists, and lawyers, to collaboratively work towards to influence decision-makers, to deliver MUSAWA’s publications to the scientific facilities of the Palestinian universities and to develop a strategic plan aiming at influencing and changing the status quo.

While, Khadija Matar, a member of the Palestinian Human Rights Defenders Network, stressed the possibility of developing MUSAWA’s publications through adopting different journalistic genres when preparing the issues and avoiding the rigid legal language, by introducing social topics back up by legal texts, pointing out the importance of changing the publication covers using attractive graphics and colors that shall attract the readers and observers, the need to try online promotion means and to initiate a YouTube channel to present the essence of the commentaries to the legal verdicts and the content of the complaints. 

In his turn, Professor Jamal al-Khawaja, legal advisor at the Advisory and Legislation Bureau, elaborated on the importance of drawing the official authorities’ attention to violations and legal memos provided in the publications, and the need to hold meetings on legislative topics, which shall result in cooperating with the competent authorities to rectify their legal status.

In the Ramallah office, Adv. Souad Melhem, a legal researcher at the Ministry of Justice, called for activating mechanisms of communication between MUSAWA and the Ministry to deliver the publications to the concerned persons and interested individuals, proposed having the contact info of each institution or ministry, and suggested allowing the relevant authorities to respond to the contents of MUSAWA’s publications, in addition, she demanded that the future issues include an article or research on elections, expressing her permanent willingness to cooperate with MUSAWA in its quest to devote the principles of justice and the rule of law.

While, Professor Ahmed Abdel Salam Abu-Deyya, the president of the Military Court of Appeal, expressed surprise that the MUSAWA’s publications were never delivered to the Military Justice Authority. In their turn, MUSAWA’s representatives confirmed that the Center has periodically sent copies of its releases to the military judiciary. Whereas, Professor Ahmed Al-Risha, a deputy prosecutor at the Attorney General's office, emphasized the public prosecution’s interest in MUSAWA’s publications, saying that the public prosecution is always willing for cooperation in order to achieve justice.

Finally, Ms. Samoud al-Barghouti, the Monitoring and Documentation Unit Coordinator at Aman, observed the need to mention the year of publication on the cover of the Justice and Law journal; for the convenience of researchers and suggested focusing on providing commentaries to the rulings issued by the Court of Corruption Crimes.