By
Youssef Diab
BEIRUT:
Four judges have been suspended from their posts and another 10 are being
investigated for other types of misbehavior, Justice Minister Shakib Qortbawi
said Friday.
Qortbawi
was speaking to a news conference to outline his ministry’s achievements over
the last 13 months since his assuming the portfolio.
“My
personal preference is to work silently,” Qortbawi said, adding that he had
called the news conference to allow the public a chance to monitor his
ministry’s achievements.
Qortbawi
discussed a range of issues, from legislative reform to prison administration,
as well as anti-corruption efforts.
He
said four judges had been suspended for suspected wrongdoing, and pledged that
the judiciary’s Disciplinary Council would follow through with harsh measures
in the 10 other cases it was now investigating.
Judicial
sources said the judges suspended were involved in cases ranging from bribery
to ethical misconduct.
Qortbawi
asked the public not to “generalize” about judicial corruption, which he said
would be unfair to the country’s many honest judges, and pledged to not be
selective in anti-corruption efforts.
“We
don’t just want to get the small ones, but the big ones too,” he said.
A
hefty salary raise for the country’s judges, which took effect late last year,
was “necessary and fundamentally important” in helping magistrates shore up
their financial conditions, which many have blamed for corruption in the past.
Another
component of the minister’s efforts to boost the standing and performance of
the judiciary involves a standardized evaluation form to monitor each member of
the bench.
Qortbawi
said he hoped the Higher Judicial Council and other components of the judiciary
would endorse the form he has proposed or otherwise suggest modifications.
“This
is so that every judge, from the moment he graduates from the Judicial Studies
Institute, will have an evaluation form, which can be relied on when making
judicial appointments,” Qortbawi said.
However,
no progress has been made on resolving a political dispute between President
Michel Sleiman and Qortbawi’s Free Patriotic Movement on appointing a new head
to the Higher Judicial Council.
He
said he hoped the long-standing dispute would not extend to naming a
replacement for public prosecutor Saeed Mirza, who has reached retirement age.
As
for other achievements, Qortbawi said a long-standing demand to speed up the
pace of trials, to relieve prison overcrowding, had registered slight progress.
In
2010, 63 percent of inmates in the country’s prisons had yet to be tried, while
last year the figure improved to 58 percent, he said.
Meanwhile,
the transfer of jurisdiction over prisons from the Interior Ministry to the
Justice Ministry “will require several years,” and several hundred people
should be employed, “trained by specialists,” in order to staff the body
responsible for prison administration, he said.
Human
rights groups and activists have long complained that the Internal Security
Forces’ supervision of prisons has led to mistreatment.
Judicial
reform should also extend to eliminating several courts established on an
exceptional basis, Qortbawi said, also pledging to limit the prerogatives of
the Military Tribunal.
As
for the issue of those who went missing or were forcibly disappeared from the
Civil War, the minister said he was pushing ahead with draft legislation to
establish an independent national council that would take up their case.
He
said the plan was now in its second version, with the Shura Council now
following modifications suggested by both the council and NGOs active on the
issue.
Qortbawi
said he hoped the plan would soon be forwarded to the Cabinet for approval.
NGOs and activists have
long complained that attempts to treat the issue have failed because the
government has refused to allow independent bodies any say in the matter.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Jul-28/182361-qortbawi-suspends-judges-amid-efforts-to-limit-corruption.ashx#axzz21tl8qNMp
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