The president of the Preparatory Committee of the conference, Mahmoud Al-Madhoun, said that this conference aims at enhancing the efficiency of justice institutions in the light of rule of law and human rights respect, and scaling up coordination and integration among criminal justice bodies.
As well as, it aims to enhance the role of the non-governmental organizations and citizens for more efficient monitoring over institutions of criminal justice, and exploring the causes of the high increase on the average of crimes and best practices of crime prevention, he added.
Moreover, he said that the conference will be a one-day event, and will be followed by three workshops including legal experts and decision makers, in order to revise the conclusions and recommendations of the conference during February and March, within a determined timeframe to implement these recommendations.
The president of the conference, Attorney General Ismael Jabir, stressed that criminal justice in Palestine faces significant local, regional and international challenges. Despite these challenges, institutions of criminal justice system are re doing their work with confidence, basing on a comprehensive strategic plan for achieving its objective, which is scaling up coordination among criminal justice institutions and experts.
Criminal justice also aims at enhancing the efficiency of the personnel and developing their skills, preparing comprehensive studies on crimes and best practices for prevention, and finally, promoting partnership with civil society organizations and intellectuals to monitor over justice institutions and practicing their roles to raise awareness on crime prevention, he added.
Moreover, he said that Public Prosecution accomplishes its tasks without any further delay and makes any effort in doing its mandated role by law towards promoting the rule of law, expediting criminal proceedings, representing the government institutions in front of judicial, maintain public money and properties.
On his part, the president of the Supreme Judicial Council, Abel Ra’ouf Al-Halabi, confirmed that judicial institutions, public prosecution and the security agencies are components of the judicial system, with an integrative and collaborative relationship.
The president of the House of Wisdom said that, to date, justice system is still facing many obstacles and challenges because of the political and institutional split, the blockade, and the occupation, particularly the lack of openness of justice system to the outside world to discuss on the recent cases and updates, as well as, coordination among institutions of criminal justice system is unfortunately still weak. Therefore, justice system needs to develop its human and financial resources including cadres and buildings in order to enable it to keep up with the increased number of crimes.
With all the recent developments in the criminal justice system, but there is another justice sector has an urgent need to de developed, especially in the regions testified an internal conflict like what happened in the Gaza Strip in 2007, which is the transitional justice to achieve social reconciliation.
The conference addressed three main topics; first, modern criminal standards and their impact on the criminal justice system, second, effective national measures for crime prevention, and third, the Palestinian criminal justice system in the light of international standards of torture prevention.
