The Efforts Of The Supreme Constitutional Court Of Palestine In Protecting Human Rights In Palestine Under Interpretative Decision No. 5/2017

Abstract

Since the formation of the Supreme Constitutional Court in 2016, it has taken the initiative to protect human rights in Palestine in light of the legislative legacy applied in Palestine from the era of Ottoman rule to the British mandate, through the Jordanian rule in the West Bank and the Egyptian administration in the Gaza Strip to the legislation of the Israeli occupation until the era of the state of Palestine.

One of the most important rulings issued by the Supreme Constitutional Court since the beginning of its work is that it added the constitutional control granted to it by the text of the amended Basic Law of 2003 and its amendments ( the interim constitution) to all legislation in force and applicable to the Palestinian people, regardless of the legislative authority that issued such legislation.

It is known that a number of laws dating back to the Ottoman era are still being applied in Palestine, the most important of which is the Journal of judicial rulings, which is considered the civil law in Palestine, and other legislations that are still in force both during the era of Jordanian rule of the West Bank and the Egyptian administration of the Gaza Strip.

Therefore, since its formation, the Supreme Constitutional Court has dealt with violations of human rights and ruled in many of them the unconstitutionality of legal texts of legislation issued in different time periods, in addition to the interpretation of the Supreme Constitutional Court of the text of Article 10 of the amended Basic Law of 2003 and its amendments related to accession to international conventions on human rights (Decision No. 5/2017), as we will see in the folds of this research.

Therefore, the research will be divided into two sections, in the first section we talk about the role of the Supreme Constitutional Court in interpreting the texts of the Basic Law as well as the interpretation of the texts of ordinary laws, while the second section is devoted to the evaluation of Decision No. 5/2017 issued by the Supreme Constitutional Court and its implications, which identified the mechanisms of ratification as well as the entry into force of international conventions in Palestine, in an attempt to demonstrate that the decision provides adequate protection of human rights.