The role of rights and community organisations in pressing for elections

“The topic of the elections is very important, because the Palestinian condition has suffered from division for 15 years, and it requires much work to renew the political system that we seek to present to Arab and international society, to tell them through it that we are holders of a right and possess the capacity to decide our own destiny.” With this saying, the lawyer of the Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights, Yahya Muhareb, opened his talk during a radio episode on the local Zaman radio titled “The role of rights and community institutions in pressing toward accomplishing the elections”, within the programme “Electoral Issues”.

The programme is carried out by Pal-Think for Strategic Studies within the project “Strengthening civil society's role in the Palestinian elections”, funded by the Government of Canada, with the goal of strengthening civil society's role and activating the role of youth and strengthening their political and communal participation in order to support the elections.

He added: “Despite some reservations from civil society institutions over the elections law — such as the employee being forced to submit their resignation, and the resignation being accepted, in order to join an electoral list, because this contravenes the Palestinian Basic Law — we have a Palestinian Basic Law equivalent to a constitution, which stipulates that every human being has their rights regardless of their political opinion, creed, and social situation, so it is necessary that the citizen have latitude from the Palestinian legislator and the authority. Civil society organisations submitted a petition in the observations that were recorded on the electoral decree concerning the elections, among them lowering the age of candidacy, which is 28 years for the Legislative Council and 40 years for the presidency.”

Muhareb made clear that the Elections Commission has administrative and financial powers to set everything related to the electoral process. The Al Mezan Centre for Human Rights enquired about the Elections Commission's working mechanism in the quarantine centres because of the coronavirus, and the reply was that there would be no ballot boxes for quarantined patients and for inmates in the prisons, and they would be deprived of their right. “So we submitted a legal request to reconsider the law, so that we could go to the elections court — we are speaking of thousands who would be deprived of their right to the elections because of the Elections Commission's lack of readiness, and this contravenes the law. We were asked to submit a challenge to the elections court, and we obtained a decision obliging the Elections Commission to have ballot boxes and to organise the balloting process for inmates, whether in the prisons or in the quarantine centres.”

As for the elections court, it was stipulated by decree-law No. 1 of 2007; it looks into all the legal challenges submitted to it, and it has the power to hear appeals against the Elections Commission's decisions.

Muhareb set out that the elections decision of 2007 stipulated that every candidate for the elections must submit their resignation, and said there would be no candidacy for an employee except with the acceptance of their resignation, and they must come with the acceptance of the resignation and the termination of their employment status. In this there is a political aim more than a legal one, and observations on this clause were submitted to the President by 120 rights and legal institutions — many people of competence withdrew from candidacy because of this condition, which likewise contravenes the Palestinian Basic Law.

As for the postponement of the syndicate elections for six months in March 2021, the lawyer said: “We believe this contravenes the law and there is no necessity for it. Because the syndicate's elections give hope to all groups of Palestinians in the possibility of change. There is no legal justification for postponing the elections in the syndicates — on the contrary, it contravened the constitution; it is purely political.”

Muhareb set out that there are legal ways to press for holding legislative and presidential elections at the earliest possible time, then National Council elections, represented in: submitting a petition to the President, or a legal position paper on the Palestinian political condition to the collective of Palestinian factions who will write the charter of honour that will organise the coming condition of the Palestinian cause — and accordingly the political interventions are broader than the legal interventions, because human rights organisations have reservations over the formation of the Constitutional Court by the President and observations on the law of forming associations.”

He added: “Also using social media, going out to the street and demanding peacefully, interventions through the media, trainings and awareness-raising for university students, and legal interventions. Also, resort to the Palestinian factions will come to more satisfying and positive results than resort to a constitutional court.”

He concluded by saying: “Human rights organisations and civil society have a moral and legal duty in overseeing the citizen's right to practise their right to vote and stand at the earliest possible time.”

The designations used and the presentation of materials in this programme entail no expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Government of Canada