President of the Supreme Court, Head of the Higher Judicial Council, Chancellor Issa Abu Sharar, discussed with a delegation from the Association of Palestinian Local Authorities – APLA, a number of cases related to municipal courts, and the possibility of holding them in the headquarters of Local Authorities rather than in the headquarters of the courts of the different governorates. This step was considered in order to expedite the process of decision-making in the pending cases, thus shorten the time and efforts of all the relevant parties to the case.

This came during a meeting attended by Eng. Musa Hadid, president of APLA, Chancellor Issa Abu Sharar, the Secretary-General of the Higher Judicial Council, Judge Asaad Al-Shunnar, APLA’s Executive Director Eng. Abdallah Anati and a number of representatives of its Executive Committee.

Both parties agreed that APLA prepares a memorandum of the demands and challenges it faces in relation to the municipal courts and presents it to the interim Higher Judicial Council.

Chancellor Abu Sharar promised to respond to the demands related to the returning the location of the municipal courts to the headquarters of Local Authorities whenever possible. Members of the delegation considered that the Law by Decree No. 32 for 2018, and its amendments Law by Decree No. 20 of 2019, on municipal courts, should assist in avoiding the occurrence of some problems in terms of representing the public prosecution to the public right in cases of disruptions that take place within the Local Authorities, thus granting the Public Prosecution the right to execute the decisions of municipal courts. They considered that such an action has affected the ability of Local Authorities to adjudicate in the cases of building disruptions and others. Members of APLA expressed their reservations about what was stipulated in the aforementioned law on the transfer of fines to the public treasury rather than to the Local Authorities.

Chancellor Abu Sharar asked the members of the delegation to follow up with the deputy on cases of Public Prosecution and Local Authorities. He pointed out that the judges apply the law in force until it is being amended with regard to fees and other issues, and that they do not have the authority to contradict the legislative text.

He confirmed that there are cases which could be addressed through the development of training curricula for new judges who adjudicate in the cases of Local Authorities. At the same time, he noted that a judge could not enforce a penalty to be a deterrent in the view of the municipality, unless such penalties have been stipulated in the law.