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Press release
PCHR Condemns US-Israeli Double Standards on PNA “reform”; Calls for Immediate Implementation of High Court Decision
Date: 4 June 2002
Ref.: 77/2002
PCHR condemns Israeli and US government criticisms of yesterday’s ruling by the Palestinian High Court of Justice to free Ahmed Sa’adat, Secretary General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). PCHR calls upon the international community to support rather than subvert the rule of law and independence of judiciary under the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
PCHR also condemns the decision of the PNA cabinet not to implement the court’s decision and reiterates its call for Sa’adat to be released immediately, in accordance with the High Court ruling.
Sa’adat was arrested by PNA security forces without charge on 15 January and detained in the presidential compound in Ramallah along with five other Palestinians wanted by Israel. On 1 May, the six detainees were transferred to a PNA facility in Jericho under a US-brokered agreement. Unlike four of the detainees, who were convicted by an impromptu PNA military court for assassinating Israeli Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi in occupied east Jerusalem last October, Sa’adat has yet to be charged with any crime or produced before a judge.
Yesterday, a panel of three judges in the High Court in Gaza found Sa’adat’s detention illegal and ordered his immediate release on the grounds that he had neither been charged with a crime nor produced before a judge. The High Court is the highest ranking civilian judicial tribunal in the PNA.
Israeli government officials condemned the court’s decision and threatened unspecified steps if Sa’adat were to be released. Israeli government spokesman Ra’anan Gissen warned that if Sa’adat “is not brought to justice, we will bring justice to him.” Israeli occupying forces also mobilised near Jericho, possibly in preparation for an attack on Sa’adat.
The US government, which provides unlimited and unconditional support to the Israeli occupation, called on the PNA not to release Sa’adat. “We expect the Palestinians to work with the Israelis rather than take unilateral steps,” State Department spokesman Philip Reeker told journalists yesterday.
PCHR is dismayed by Israeli and American pressure on the PNA to subvert the independence of the judiciary and the rule of law while at the same time claiming to support reforms. The US government’s participation in the deal to detain Sa’adat without charge in Jericho and its criticism of yesterday’s Court decision both contradict its public statements calling for transparent and democratic institutions in the PNA.
PCHR also considers this as an important test case for the implementation of the Judicial Authority Law ratified by PNA President Yasser Arafat on 14 May, several years after it was ratified by the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC).
No party, be it the Israeli occupying forces, the PNA, or the international community, is empowered to conclude agreements that violate international humanitarian law. Under Article 7 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, “no special agreement shall adversely affect the situation of protected persons.”
PCHR is dismayed at the longstanding pattern of international pressure on the PNA to violate human rights and democratic norms, as manifested recently in the EU-brokered agreement to deport a number of Palestinians seeking refuge in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, unlawful deportation of protected persons is a war crime.
PCHR reiterates its call for the international community to genuinely support the rule of law and independence of the judiciary, as well as the application of international humanitarian law, in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
