Court Watch
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Israeli Case-Law under Scrutiny
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Israel has been systematically violating the rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories and its own obligations under international law for over forty years. Israel has opened the doors of its judicial system to the Palestinian population and entrusted its courts with the role of overseeing the lawfulness of the military administration, the actions of its agents and the bureaucratic products of the occupation. Thousands of petitions and claims have been filed before the Israeli courts over the years. HaMoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual has been taking part in this legal activism and has taken over 3,000 court actions since its inception.
The judicial authority has neglected its supervisory role – often, justices embrace the state's position, occasionally, without offering any criticism. They base decisions on “confidential security material”, without giving the petitioners a chance to examine it, and consequently, to challenge it. By issuing judgments endorsing Israeli belligerency, members of the judiciary allow the Israeli occupation to continue under the false pretense of upholding human rights.
Whether directly or indirectly, the Israeli courts provide a legal seal of approval for the acts of the occupation. Thus, the HCJ has granted legitimacy, both legal and public, to various aspects of the occupation, including the establishment of new settlements and the expansion of existing ones; land expropriation; house demolition; the construction of the separation wall deep inside the occupied territory; travel restrictions inside the territories and the denial of entry into and exit out of them; collective punishment; the siege on Gaza including the closing of border crossings for people and wares, preventing patients from traveling out of Gaza Strip for medical treatment abroad and their entry to Israel for that purpose; administrative detention; targeted assassination; non-enforcement of the law on Israel and its agents who continually violate the rights of Palestinians, causing them mental and physical injuries and damage to their property.
This section presents case commentaries from a human rights perspective on decisions of the HCJ and other courts.
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