Empowerment and Protection - Stories of Human Security Oct. 2014 | Seite 52

Occupied
Palestinian
Territory

Legal framework and rule of law

Salih al-Kurd from Wad al-Jowz is a nurse
and an entertainer for sick children in
Jerusalem.
Once, when I was on duty, a woman came to the
hospital who had clearly been beaten; she had
lots of bruises, but when I asked her what had
happened, she said that she had fallen down the
stairs. I think she was afraid that if she told the truth
I would go to the police. I tried to reassure her, and
said that I wasn’t going to go to the police, but that
it was important that she tell me so I knew how to
treat her. She said that her husband had hit her, but
that she didn’t want anyone to know. I asked her why
she had refused to tell the truth, and it was obvious
that she was scared that the police would find out
and that her husband would go to prison. Also, it’s
the traditional method of dealing with these sorts
of issues – women are discouraged from going to
the police, because the community would blame
her for her husband’s incarceration. Normally the
community doesn’t let the police interfere in these
sorts of things.

Mahmoud Qara’een from Ra’s al-‘Amoud is a
field researcher in Jerusalem.
The [Israeli] police are only interested in women’s
issues. In situations not relating to women, the
solutions according to the police or the measures
the police take are minimal, and don’t solve
anything. By focussing only on women’s issues,
the police are trying to make people believe that
the Arab man is a violent one, who can’t take
responsibility for his family, and behaves like a
criminal.

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Although there are women’s rights written into
law, they need both improvement and rigorous
implementation. For example, obsolete laws which
refer to honour killings are from the time of the
Jordanian occupation.

Rule of law is only partially effective. There are
parallel traditional practices, even for instance in
cases of traffic accidents, which generally have to
be respected at least as much as official security.g
The traditional method of justice, known as sulha,
is still often used to address both individual and
community level tensions, by facilitating members
of families to meet and discuss a conflict until they
reach an agreement. The fact that this approach
is deeply based in tradition has its advantage in so
far as it can help agreements to hold; nevertheless,
there are many issues that do not lend themselves
to a traditional approach.

In a case from Gaza, one participant spoke of how
after her husband’s death, his family took her to
court in order to get possession of their house.
She explained that although there is a law in Islam
that states that when the son dies, the possessions
go to the parents, she and her husband had
worked for and owned their house for twentyfive years. The fact that it could potentially be
taken from her, leaving her homeless and with no
insurance, demonstrates the lack of legal support
for women.

“Normally the
community doesn’t let
the police interfere in
these sorts of things.”

The role of the sulha in relation to women, and
to violence against women, is not always so clear,
since it is based on tradition, and its judges are
traditionally all male. Especially in reference to
women in Jerusalem there could be times when
there was the dilemma: whether to seek help
against domestic violence by the traditional sulha
process? Or by going to the police – in Jerusalem,
therefore, the Israeli police? In the West Bank,
while mechanisms for women seeking protection
from domestic violence are not very reliable, but
do exist, at least the police are Palestinian.

Participants especially in the West Bank expressed
concerns about the lack of an effective legal
framework that both deterred people from
committing crimes and punished them if they
did. Each of the focus groups highlighted that this
was the case especially for the most vulnerable
groups in society, such as women and people with
special needs. But there are also problems with
out-of-date laws from Jordanian and even British
Mandate and Ottoman times. This problem of
outdated laws is compounded by the fact that the
Palestinian Legislative Council has not been able
to meet since 2007 because they cannot gather
between Gaza and the West Bank, and due to the
detention of members by the Israelis.

Another example of the inadequacy of the legal
framework was in reference to the subject of
food goods. Because people are using outdated
Jordanian laws, there is nothing to prevent people
from selling expired goods, which happens
regularly. Food is sold past its sell-by-date, with
people who are unable to read – a separate
issue in itself – falling prey. Because of a lack of
monitoring and the absence of an effective legal
system to punish such actions, these problems
persist.
The absence of monitoring and regulating the
provision of services, whether regarding food,
medical services or customer services, means that
people are not held accountable for any lapses or
shortcomings. The provision of an effective and
satisfactory service is simply not considered a
priority. People do not experience security in the
goods that they buy, and the hospital treatment
on which they rely are of poor quality. One feels
secure if the basic essentials are provided for: food

While there are individual women as well as
women’s groups that work to uphold women’s
rights, the legal framework was deemed
insufficient and insufficiently enforced to protect
women.
g This means that if for instance a driver hits a pedestrian, even if there
are no injuries and the police are satisfied that there is no cause for
prosecution or complaint, according to traditional law, the driver will still
have to visit the pedestrian’s family and pay perhaps quite substantial
compensation.

Menu

Anonymous respondent employed at a
Ministry in the West Bank
My mother in law came to visit from Jordan, so we
held a little gathering to welcome her, and I had
bought some kanafeh [a local sweet made with
white cheese]. I noticed that people were only
eating the top and not the cheese. When I tried it I
could barely smell it, it was so disgusting.

“ he problem is
T
that there is no
monitoring
of food goods.”
So I went to the Ministry and they sent some people
to the bakery where we had bought the kanafeh.
When they got into the kitchen, it was filthy, things
were rusting and there was a terrible smell, like
a rubbish bin. They wrote a report on the bakery
and the case is still going through the courts. They
closed the man’s store, and I do think that he will
be punished, but the problem is that there is no
monitoring of food goods.

and water, health and education services. But
when the quality or even the provision of such
things is not guaranteed, this leads to feelings of
fear and want, and also a lack of dignity.

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