2019-04-07

Ramallah

West Bank

His Excellency the president and members of the Palestinian Bar Association’s Council,

Subject: The Complaint Fees at the Palestinian Bar Association

MUSAWA- The Palestinian Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession extends its warmest greetings to your excellences, noting that MUSAWA has learned from the Department of the profession affairs and the Accounting Department at the Palestinian Bar Association that the Association imposes fees of 30 Jordanian Dinar on any complaint filed against a lawyer, even if the complaint was regarding a violation against the professional code of conduct. However, MUSAWA could not know how the Complaints department views the mentioned information, despite our repeated attempts to make contact with it.     

MUSAWA believes that it is necessary to identify the legal basis and justifications for imposing this fee, to enable the citizens to access and identify them, which could enhance the mutual trust between the lawyers and their clients, hoping that you take the needed legal action in this regard, which shall include announcing all the fees related to the citizens’ coefficients at the Bar Association on its official website, or hanging them on the official announcements’ board in the competent departments, especially that the value of the fee might entail charging the citizens with charges that do not meet their salaries or financial capacities, which could impede their access to their rights with the help of the Association, in its capacity as a body that protects human rights, including the citizens’ right to turn to it or to courts for justice.

With All Due Respect,

Issued on 7/4/2019

Legal Monitoring Officer

Adv. Angham Mansour