Remarks by Attorney Joe Karam - Syria Displaced Crisis

Friday, September 1, 2017

The impact on the judicial system of Lebanon & the Rule of Law from the Syrian displaced & refugees; the Lebanese Legal system is based on the civil continental law. The Number of judges as reported by the ministry of justice is 530 including civil and criminal courts (among them 45 Judges who holds PhD from Lebanon & Europe Universities), Also 8 Judges holds LLM masters of Law from the US and the UK among them 2 Fulbright scholars and 6 chevening scholars. More than 55 Judges attended IVLP programs in the US and many were trained with INL or USAID assistance in the last 8 years in the US 55 % of the Judiciary of Lebanon are Women Judges. There are 35 court centers around Lebanon (it can be a big court house or just one court ).

The Lebanese judicial sector consisting of around 530 judges (including 370 ordinary judges and 170 judges affiliated with general prosecutions, MoJ departments and the international tribunal) was meant to serve 3 million citizens and 500,000 visitors. While the number of residents in Lebanon has reached today around 6 million (among them about 1,500000 Syrian ), each of them having duties and rights including the right to access justice whether as plaintiffs or defendants, the judicial sector has remained as is, in numbers and equipment … except for a few timid aesthetic initiatives to improve the appearance of some palaces of justice.

Budget is 0.45% of the Lebanese Government Budget!!!

1. 30000 cases in 1993 in Mount Lebanon Prosecution office,95000 cases in 2016 same office (After Syrian crisis)
2. Juvenile matters & Shelters (Juvenile criminality is growing among refugees, Shelters are poor in resources and places for both Lebanese and Foreigners )
3. Many disabled Lebanese & Foreigners among them Syrians cannot access the Courts cause no budgets to adapt the courts to Disabled conditions ...
4. Legal aid by Beirut Bar (The Pro-bono legal aid assistance offered by the Beirut Bar is invaded by demands from the courts with an aggravation of demands coming from criminal courts with a majority of Syrians and foreign demand of assistance : About 1200 cases last year)
5. Prisons of Lebanon are overbooked, with poor resources and zero budget for development of facilities. The prisons of Lebanon are managed by the ministry of Interior. There is an absence of institute to form Prison administrators…
6. Military court : Overbooked with a huge cases of Foreign  Terrorist arrested.
7. Impact on the annual Human rights reports on Lebanon’s because of the back logs in the courts due to intense access by foreigners to the legal system which made it difficult to the courts to keep normal proceedings with same resources during the crisis.
8. A huge number of cases involving human trafficking in the Syrian community of refugees including prostitution was an issue the last years of the crisis.
9. International assistance related to the consequences of the Syrian refugee crisis on the Lebanese Judiciary is poor.
10. The Impact of the crisis of refugees is indirectly affecting the independence of the Lebanese Judiciary because the resources of each court are used quickly and each Judge will need to ask the executive branch for budget assistance and material resources.
11. It is important that the International community of donors allocate a percentage of 15% of each assistance allocated to the security apparel  to be spent in the Judicial system so Justice will be better served to Lebanese & foreigners.