Palestine shows the way on judicial reform, The Daily Star

Opinion, July 2003, www.aljazeerah.info

Palestine shows the way on judicial reform

The Daily Star, 7/28/03

The announcement by Palestinian Justice Minister Abdelkarim Abu Saleh Sunday that the Palestinian Authority had abolished its state security courts is a welcomed and long overdue piece of good news. Such special military tribunals are common throughout the Arab world, but in most cases their legitimate national security function has long been dwarfed by their tendency to be abused by ruling authorities for partisan political goals. This is a wise move by the Palestinians. We hope it challenges the rest of the Arab world to go down this same path of rational and real reform – not the rhetorical variety of reform whereby governments claim to shed their control mechanisms, but in reality they only create new institutions that provide more creative and indirect methods of control.
Palestinian lawyers staged a strike in 2000 to protest the increased use of state security courts, usually at the expense of civil courts. Human rights organizations in Palestine and throughout the region and the world have frequently criticized state security courts for providing flawed and impartial justice, including, in some cases, death sentences that cannot be appealed. There is a legitimate role in every country for courts to deal with issues of overriding national security concerns, in times of war or peace. But in the Arab world and other developing regions such institutions that should be reserved for true emergency situations have been co-opted into serving the political aims of ruling power elites. We can point to many examples of cases tried before state security courts that should have gone before normal civilian courts.
The consequences of such a legacy are multiple, and all negative. The integrity of the national judiciary is dented. The credibility of incumbent regimes is lowered. Trust in the impartial use of public power is eroded. Ordinary citizens who fear they may not get a fair trial lose faith in the institutions of state, which opens the door to criminality on a large scale. The state itself is also degraded when it vastly exaggerates legitimate constitutional and moral definitions of what constitutes a national security emergency that requires extraordinary measures, such as using state security courts. Some governments that degrade the judiciary by over-using state security courts often simultaneously degrade the legislature by passing too may “temporary laws” – laws that tend to end up being about as temporary as the pyramids of Egypt.
The Palestinian decision to abolish the state security courts is a breath of fresh air in a region that badly needs examples of specific steps that can be taken to bring about real and meaningful reform. The Palestinians would do the rest of this region a favor by providing legal and political mechanisms that ensure means of dealing with genuine security threats, while safeguarding the constitutional rights of ordinary citizens and curtailing the ability of incumbent governments to abuse the power that is in their hands. An independent, fair and effective judiciary is the lynchpin of good governance. The Palestinians should be applauded for taking one step in that direction, and perhaps showing the way for others in this region to follow.

Earth, a planet hungry for peace

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).

The Israeli apartheid (security) wall around Palestinian population centers in the West Bank (Ran Cohen, pmc, 5/24/03).