2021-07-01

West Bank

West Bank / Core Program / position paper

Judge Bassam Hijjawi, Honorable Judge of the Supreme Court,

Greetings,

Subject: Your invitation to MUSAWA to proctor the oral examination and personal interview for the judicial competition, according to your letter No. 16/1742 dated 30/6/2021

At the outset, thank you for contacting us, reminding your Excellency of the position of MUSAWA - the Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession and since the beginnings that featured the appointment of a Transitional Judicial Council by the President of the Executive Authority then the transition of a large number of judges to retirement and the re-allocation of a number of other Judges to non-judicial positions according to procedures we see as grave violation of the law; and finally the issuance of Decree-Laws amending the judicial legislation, foremost of which is the Judicial Authority Law, by a non-competent body and in a manner that contradicts with the Basic Law, on the basis of which the head of the High Judicial Council was appointed by a decree of the executive authority.

After the thorough, professional, independent and impartial understanding of these developments, we found that it constituted a real setback to the independence of the judiciary and a blatant interference by the executive authority in it. As a reminder, we attach our last statement  regarding this. All of this makes the legal and constitutional legitimacy of the High Judicial Council a subject of serious dispute and great suspicion and a subject of broad societal opposition represented in the agreement of other civil society institutions with our aforementioned position. In view of this, we apologize for declining the invitation because we firmly believe that the competition is the product of a structure and procedures that conflict with the independence, integrity and impartiality of the Judiciary, and with the mechanisms for occupying the job, its standards and the competent supervision body.

With respect,

Issued on:01/07/2021

Ahlam Tarayra

Executive Director