On 2 May 2025, the government adopted the bill regulating the judicial judiciary that Minister of Justice Adel Nassar had prepared pursuant to the government’s policy statement. This move marks a new chapter in the process of attempting to reform the judicial judiciary as the minister based his bill on the judicial judiciary independence bill as amended by the Administration and Justice Committee and on the recommendations reached by the Justice Forum, in which the various parties involved in the judicial independence project participated.

 

While the bill takes significant steps forward toward achieving judicial independence, we must also note that in some respects, it is still burdened by the effect of certain judicial, sectoral, and sectarian sensitivities, which prevented the full adoption of judicial independence standards. We hope that these sensitivities can be overcome in the parliamentary debates on the bill.

 

Before reviewing the main positives and negatives of the bill, we must first recall the key stages that it has gone through over the past years.

The Bill’s Main Stages

The journey to reform the judicial judiciary began in 2014, when the Legal Agenda announced that it was commencing work on this matter. This work came as part of a broad reformist vision that included conducting research and launching public discussions aimed at involving as much of society as possible in the judicial reform process so that it might become a social priority. In parallel with this announcement, we emphasized the importance of involving judges in the judiciary’s reform and their right to establish associations that would ensure such involvement. This right had been a top priority of the Legal Agenda’s founders since 2006, and judges managed to establish it, after a number of faltering attempts, in April 2018. In parallel, the Legal Agenda launched the Judicial Observatory, which aims to monitor judicial work and effectuate the principle of public trials. We also continued our strategic litigation aimed at enshrining the judiciary’s social role.

 

The most important fruit to come out of this work was the drafting of a bill on the independence and transparency of the judicial judiciary based on all the issues that the Legal Agenda had identified. The bill was signed by a number of MPs, namely Osama Saad, Paula Yacoubian, Georges Okais, Chamel Roukoz, Ali Darwish, Fouad Makhzoumi, Michel Moussa, Najib Mikati, and Yassine Jaber. It was registered with Parliament’s Registry on 11 September 2018, after the Legal Agenda held a conference in Parliament’s library to this end.

 

However, the debate only gained significant social traction amidst the protest movement that began on 17 October 2019. Achieving judicial independence transformed into one of the most important demands of the groups active in the movement, as reflected by the dozens of conferences held in the tents spread across Lebanon.

 

Although Administration and Justice Committee President Georges Adwan declared 2019 to be the year of judicial independence at the beginning of that year, the committee only began debating the bill in December 2019, under pressure from the protest movement’s demands. The Legal Agenda warned about the committee’s methodology and slow pace, especially as it refrained from debating the bill’s individual articles, opting instead to brainstorm about entire chapters and task certain judges with redrafting them. The result was a mixed product that lacked a unified vision and precise wording.

 

The first text in this regard was produced by the Administration and Justice Committee’s micro-committee in May 2021. Although it retained the structure of the Legal Agenda’s bill, it contained many flaws that the Independence of the Judiciary Coalition (IJC) quickly noted and called to correct. At this point, former minister of justice Marie-Claude Najm stepped in, establishing a judicial committee inside the ministry that ultimately added comments to the bill’s articles one by one and made alternative suggestions wherever it deemed appropriate. More importantly, Najm – for the first time in Lebanese history – sought the opinion of the Venice Commission (an advisory commission of the Council of Europe) in response to a formal request presented to her by the IJC. This move would pave the way for maturing the bill and cementing international standards as a frame of reference.

 

In light of the feedback from the IJC and the Ministry of Justice, the Administration and Justice Committee ultimately adopted a revised version of the micro-committee’s bill on 21 December 2021. The IJC again deemed this version insufficient for guaranteeing judicial independence and asked, after Minister of Justice Henri Khoury confirmed Najm’s request for the Venice Commission’s opinion, that the debate of the bill in the General Assembly be postponed until this opinion arrived. The debate was, in fact, postponed based on a request that the minister made in the General Assembly session on 21 February 2022.

After listening to the various actors, including the IJC, the Venice Commission issued its opinion on 20 June 2022. The opinion included a detailed description of Article 95 of the Constitution and its implications for the judicial sphere. Its most important points in this regard included the importance of establishing candidacy mechanisms to prioritize competence and of committing not to earmark any judicial position for any sect. The commission also discussed the issue of sectarian parity inside the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) without reaching any definitive conclusion in this area. It also made clear recommendations on a number of issues, including increasing the representation of junior judges in the SJC, requiring the SJC’s ex officio members to be appointed from among candidates proposed by the SJC and prohibiting the justice minister from adding extra candidates, reducing the SJC majority required to decide the personnel charts in the case of a disagreement with the justice minister, amending the mechanisms for appointing the members of the Judicial Inspection Authority (JIA) and the Judicial Evaluation Authority in order to reduce the executive branch’s domination over these appointments, establishing clear mechanisms to ensure that competence is the criterion that determines judicial appointments (beginning with an evaluation system, a transparent candidacy system, and a mechanism for selecting the best candidate), guaranteeing judges’ freedom to establish professional associations without unjustified restrictions, and providing a legal mechanism for challenging decisions that are obviously arbitrary or have serious procedural flaws.

The IJC promptly welcomed this opinion and called for the bill to be amended in light of the recommendations it contained. However, the Administration and Justice Committee adopted only one of these recommendations (the establishment of a mechanism for appointing the ex officio members if the government fails to appoint them based on the shortlists of candidates prepared by the SJC), neglecting the rest despite their importance. The Administration and Justice Committee finished drafting the third version of the bill on 7 March 2023. Once again, the IJC promptly rejected it. Although the bill was placed on the agenda of the 14 December 2023 General Assembly session, then prime minister Najib Mikati asked Parliament to hold off debating and voting on it.

In parallel with this effort, the Justice Forum was launched in late February 2024. This forum included Parliament’s Administration and Justice Committee, the Ministry of Justice, the various judicial authorities, and all the other actors involved, such as the IJC, the Lebanese Judges Association, both bar associations, and the law faculties of the Lebanese University and private universities. The forum served as an effective framework for debating all the pending points and reaching the broadest possible agreements based on international standards of judicial independence and on the exigencies of the Lebanese system as determined by the actors. All dissenting opinions were also recorded. In February 2025, the forum concluded the work of its first group and referred the conclusions of its discussions to the various actors.

As it happened, this societal and institutional effort came at the ideal time to coalesce with the political developments that began in January 2025. The new president’s inaugural address included a pledge to “adopt a new bill for judicial independence”, and the government’s policy statement pledged to “cement the independence of the judicial, administrative, and financial judiciary, improve its conditions, and reform it”. Upon assuming office, the new justice minister Adel Nassar found the path paved for him to lead judicial reform to its final stage. This he achieved via marathon sessions with SJC President Sohail Abboud, JIA President Ayman Oueidat, Dean of Saint Joseph University’s Law Faculty Marie-Claude Najm, Executive Director of the Legal Agenda Nizar Saghieh, and Justice Forum representative Fadi Oneissy, as well as the two judges responsible for the final drafting Zyad Ayoub and Joseph Tamer and the minister’s advisor Lara Saade. The meetings aimed primarily to incorporate the Justice Forum’s recommendations into the bill, thereby preserving the participatory approach that it had established. From the outset, it was agreed that after a recounting of the Justice Forum’s recommendations, the minister would listen to all opinions at the table and have the final say if no clear understanding was reached. The minister did, in fact, exercise this power in relation to some points in the bill, including by preserving the executive branch’s right to appoint two SJC members. Sectoral sensitivities also emerged in the bill via the restriction of appeals to disciplinary decisions to a body emanating from the SJC, contrary to the principle of the natural judge. Hence, we can say that the bill is the outcome of broad societal discussions that culminated in the work of the Justice Forum and reflected the maturity of the public debate on judicial reform, although political, judicial, and sectoral sensitivities prevented some of its provisions from fully adhering to international standards.

A Careful Reading of the Bill

We will now assess the bill’s positives and negatives in light of the above and the points raised by the Venice Commission.

The SJC: Boosting Its Independence and Powers

The SJC’s Independence

In this regard, the bill adopts the following choices:

Firstly, it adopts the principle that five members of the SJC be elected by the judges. One is elected from the Court of Cassation, two are elected from the appellate level, and two are elected from the first instance level, one of whom must be a single judge. In this regard, the bill can be credited for expanding the electorate to include all judges without exception, whereas the current law restricts voting to judges of the Court of Cassation. Similarly, the bill expands eligibility to run for election to include all judges who have reached the fifth grade or higher (i.e. who have at least eight years of experience), whereas it is currently restricted to the “presidents of the Court of Cassation” (who number just 10). In this way, the bill rehabilitates the chamber counselors in the courts of appeal and cassation without entirely abolishing the distinction between them and the chamber presidents. If the bill passes, they will be able to run for two of the three positions allocated to these two levels. The bill also enshrines the principle of representation for junior judges (i.e. single judges), although this representation remains disproportionate to their large number (there are at least 100 single judges).

While the bill conforms with the international standards that require at least half of the SJC’s members to be elected by their peers, it constitutes a step backward in relation to the Administration and Justice Committee’s bill, which set the number of elected members to seven. The justice minister insisted that it should be left up to the government to appoint two members because of a need for diverse methods of appointing SJC members. Judicial elections, he said, will be a new experience in the Lebanese system, and it is impossible to predict how judges will interact with it. He also argued that mechanisms are needed to correct any imbalances in the representation of certain groups of judges – whether based on sect or gender – that could arise from the elections.

The minister then introduced, in coordination with Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, a positive amendment to the bill before putting it to a vote in the Council of Ministers. This amendment requires that the two aforementioned members be appointed from two shortlists, each containing three candidates. The first shortlist is prepared by the members of the Court of Cassation, while the second is prepared by the chamber presidents of the Courts of Appeal. In this manner, the bill strips the executive branch of its ability to select these two members single-handedly.

For its part, the Legal Agenda had suggested, in its 2018 bill, creating means to correct the potential outcome of the elections. Specifically, it proposed allowing the SJC’s elected members (who would constitute at least half of the members) and ex officio members to appoint a number of additional members. The SJC and the Ministry of Justice made the same proposal in the recommendations sent in 2022 to the Administration and Justice Committee, and the committee brought it up again in its final report on this matter.

From another angle, the bill enshrines another principle that the Legal Agenda proposed in its 2018 bill, namely the need to strip the government of its power to single-handedly appoint the three ex officio members (the president of the Court of Cassation, the cassation public prosecutor, and the president of the JIA) by obligating it to select them from shortlists prepared by the SJC containing three candidates for each position. The bill also deprives the justice minister of the ability to add extra candidates, in keeping with the recommendations that the Venice Commission made in its commentary on the Administration and Justice Committee’s bill. However, it contains no mechanism to address refusal or reluctance by the justice minister or government to carry out the necessary appointments, besides the stipulation that the highest graded judge in the aforementioned bodies shall assume the tasks of the vacant position.

While the requirement that these members be selected from the SJC’s shortlists constitutes an important safeguard, this safeguard will be strongest if the SJC has broad options and manages to establish eligibility requirements commensurate with these positions. Of course, the SJC’s options will be improved if it complies with Article 95 of the Constitution, which prohibits earmarking any judicial or administrative position for any sect. Conversely, this safeguard will be weaker if the SJC’s options are limited by high grade requirements or earmarked positions. It should also be mentioned that the bill establishes a term limit for the ex officio members, although it extends the limit from the four years proposed by the Legal Agenda to six years.

Additionally, we must note that an extreme sensitivity shared by the judicial authorities and judges in general prevented acceptance of the Legal Agenda’s proposal that some members be appointed from outside the judiciary, specifically from among lawyers or university professors. The Venice Commission stressed the importance of having such members in order to make the SJC more open to society and mitigate the risk of a corporatist spirit emerging. Despite the amount of time that has been spent thinking about this law, the presence of non-judge members still constitutes a judicial taboo that conflicts with the SJC’s nature and intended purpose. During the Justice Forum, the Legal Agenda called for the establishment of a consultative body attached to the SJC and composed of non-judge members as an experiment to be conducted until judicial opinion on this matter matures.

Finally, the bill contains articles institutionalizing the presence of a secretariat for the SJC and boosting the SJC’s human and material resources, as well as its financial independence.

The SJC’s Powers

For the first time, the bill grants the SJC comprehensive power over all matters related to judges’ careers. This is evident from Article 7, which states that “the Council is responsible for watching over judges’ moral and material rights, guarantees, and fair treatment, as well as everything related to their independence, appointment, personnel charts, transfer, discipline, and all other matters concerning them”.

Accordingly, while the bill affirms the SJC’s power to draft the judicial personnel charts, it also reproduces a proposal made by the Administrative and Justice Committee to enable the SJC to overcome obstructionist practices and political vetoes. Article 71 stipulates that the personnel charts take effect if no decree promulgating them is issued within one month of the draft’s submission to the office of the Ministry of Justice. While the bill retains the minister’s power to make comments on the personnel charts draft, it enables the SJC to override them via a seven-member majority. This runs counter to the Venice Commission’s recommendation that the required majority be set at no more than an absolute majority (i.e. six members in the case of the current SJC), which the IJC supported.

The bill also vests the SJC with a new function, namely periodically evaluating judges based on criteria that it is responsible for setting. This it will do via evaluation committees in which it and the JIA each appoint two members (a recommendation by the Justice Forum).

The SJC is also responsible for disciplining judges via a first instance body and an appellate body, the former of which is appointed by the Disciplinary Council and the latter by the SJC itself.

The bill also grants the SJC the power to draft two extremely important documents, namely the judicial ethics code and the communication policy followed by the courts. The text seems to call upon the SJC to conduct broad consultations, although it would have been better to mandate participation in this area.

Guaranteeing the SJC’s Transparency

The bill boosts the SJC’s internal and external transparency, with most of its articles being taken from the Legal Agenda’s 2018 bill.

First, the bill tasks the SJC with drafting an internal statute within six months of beginning its term. This statute is expected to set rules for the SJC’s work and thereby reduce arbitrariness and boost internal transparency.

Second, the SJC must publish its agendas and decisions.

Third, Article 21 allows decisions that the SJC issues in the scope of its role in organizing the judiciary to be challenged before the State Council, unless they are excluded by another provision. These decisions necessarily include the judicial personnel charts and any other decision that the SJC makes in the context of its power to watch over the judicial system and judicial independence, although it would have been better to mention explicitly that the right to challenge encompasses all individual and organizational decisions that the SJC makes in this regard. Thus, the bill partially adopts the concept of the natural judge, overcoming a judicial sector sensitivity that previously resulted in a refusal to subject decisions by the judicial judiciary’s council to the Administrative Court. However, it does not apply this concept to disciplinary decisions (which are appealable before the Supreme Disciplinary Council) or decisions declaring a judge’s incapacity (which are appealable before the Full Bench of the Court of Cassation), which may be the most serious types of decisions. The Constitutional Council held, in Decision no. 5 of 2000 (dated 27 June 2000), that stripping the State Council of the power to examine disciplinary decisions weakens judicial safeguards. In this regard, we face another judicial sensitivity preventing the text from fully adhering to international standards, one that can be added to the judicial sensitivity obstructing the appointment of SJC members from outside the judiciary.

The JIA’s Independence

The bill enshrines the independence of the JIA by removing the provision subjecting it to the justice minister’s supervision. In this regard, the bill addresses one of the gravest aspects of the Administration and Justice Committee’s bill, which allowed the executive branch to appoint all the JIA’s members without the SJC playing any role. Hence, under the bill, the appointment of general inspectors and regular inspectors occurs via a decree proposed by the justice minister on the basis of shortlists submitted by the SJC, the State Council’s Bureau, and the Bureau of the Court of Accounts, each with respect to its own area. However, the bill once again includes no mechanism to overcome government stalling when it comes to carrying out the aforementioned appointments.

Judges’ Inherent Rights and Freedoms

Besides the above, the bill addresses judges’ inherent rights and freedoms.

First, the bill stresses that judges must be independent in the execution of their judicial functions in order to ensure litigants’ rights and freedoms. The bill reaffirms independence in several places. For example, it stipulates that judges enjoy all rights and freedoms enshrined in the Constitution and laws in effect and that these rights and freedoms cannot be restricted except as required by judicial independence and ethics. It also states that judges may only be appointed, transferred, evaluated, disciplined, or dismissed in accordance with its provisions.

Second, the bill declares – for the first time in the history of the Lebanese judiciary – the “principle that a judge cannot be transferred without his consent”. Only two cases limit this right: the case that a disciplinary punishment (not including a warning or reprimand) has been issued against the judge, and the case that the judge has spent five years in his or her position. In the latter case, the text stipulates that the judge must be transferred to an equivalent or higher position. Here too, the bill corrects one of the major flaws of the Administration and Justice Committee’s bill, which limited this principle to transfers made outside the context of the personnel charts.

Third, the bill declares – again for the first time – that judges have freedom of expression and assembly and to establish associations, on equal footing with all other citizens. To this end, it paraphrases the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct, which have been adopted as a reference document by the United Nations’ General Assembly. This bill states:

“A judge has freedom of expression, belief, assembly, and association but, when exercising these rights, must always behave in a manner that preserves the dignity of the judicial office, the impartiality and independence of the judicial authority, and judges’ ethics principles.”

The reference to the Bangalore document allows us to capitalize on all the international explanations of this article in order to strike a balance between judges’ freedom and the need to preserve their impartiality and independence. The bill also includes a second paragraph that prohibits judges from “engaging in political activity and participating, in any manner, in any assembly or association whose objectives conflict with the principles of human rights, justice, and equality”. Despite the importance of these provisions in terms of enshrining freedom within reasonable, internationally recognized constraints, another paragraph was added stating that “a judge who wishes to appear in the media must inform the SJC president at least 48 hours in advance”.

While this paragraph raises the concern that prior notification will turn into a means of exerting pressure to restrict this freedom in one way or another, this concern is allayed by the unequivocal declaration of the principle of freedom based on international standards. This declaration renders any such pressure akin to moral coercion aimed at preventing judges from exercising their freedom, which is punishable by law.

Fourth, the bill declares the principle of equality among judges in multiple places. Besides rehabilitating counselor judges and junior judges by allowing them to run and vote just like chamber presidents, the bill also enshrines this principle via an explicit provision prohibiting “any discrimination of any kind in the personnel charts, particularly discrimination based on race, gender, religion, or sect”. Of course, this article accords with Article 95 of the Constitution, which prohibits earmarking any judicial or administrative position for any sect and gives competence and expertise precedence over any sectarian consideration. Hopefully, this article will constitute an avenue for overcoming the sectarian earmarking of positions. The bill also aims to reduce practices discriminating among judges via their appointment to committees. This it does by limiting a judge’s appointment to one committee at a time and imposing a maximum term of five years on the one committee. Such appointments also require prior approval by the SJC based on the Evaluation Committee’s report.

The principle of equality also appears in the subjection of all judges, without exception, to periodic evaluation.

Fifth, the bill corrects one of the gravest articles in the current law, namely the infamous Article 95. This article has been applied arbitrarily to allow the removal of judges without a fair trial and without any right to appeal before an impartial judicial authority. The correction consists of a definition of the circumstances under which a declaration of incapacity can be issued against a judge, which are limited to two cases: the case that the judge has lost physical or mental capacity, as proven by a report from an expert, and the case that the judge has received the lowest possible evaluation twice in a row. The amended article further requires the declaration to be issued via a supermajority in the JIA and the SJC and allows the judge in question to challenge it before the Full Bench of the Court of Cassation. The current law, in contrast, denies the judge any right to judicial review.

Sixth, the bill enshrines the right to litigate and to a fair trial. This it does by allowing SJC decisions to be challenged before the natural judge (the State Council), as explained earlier. However, it constricts this right to disciplinary cases and declarations of incapacity, which are the most serious cases, as previously explained.

The bill can also be credited for introducing several reforms to disciplinary cases, the most important being the following:

 

• It redefines the concept of a disciplinary fault, based on the definition that the Legal Agenda proposed in 2018, in the following manner:

 

“Any breach of the duties of judicial work, and any action or inaction that could undermine the principles of judicial ethics or shake respect and trust in judicial work and the justice system, constitutes a prosecutable disciplinary infraction.”

 

The bill thereby frees disciplinary faults from flexible concepts such as honor, dignity, and propriety, which the Venice Commission warned against. Although it does not follow the Legal Agenda’s suggestion to provide a breakdown of disciplinary infractions based on their gravity, it does obligate the SJC to publish the significant grounds of its disciplinary decisions, thereby allowing the concept and gravity of disciplinary faults to be honed through jurisprudence. The bill also adds, based on the Venice Commission’s recommendation and the Legal Agenda’s 2018 bill, that punishment must be proportionate to the gravity of the fault.

• The bill restricts the ability to suspend a judge to the Disciplinary Council and the SJC, stripping the justice minister of this power. While the text guarantees that suspended judges receive their full salaries during the suspension period, it prohibits them from challenging the suspension decision. This constitutes a derogation from fair trial principles.

 

• The bill introduces – for the first time – the ability to turn a disciplinary trial into a public trial at the request of the judge being prosecuted or the JIA, pursuant to the principle of the publicity of trials. This provision appeared in the Legal Agenda’s 2018 proposal.

 

Seventh, the bill includes safeguards for judges that prevent judicial superiors from abusing their power to issue them remarks. The most important of these safeguards are that a remark can only be issued within one month of learning of the issue concerned and that a remark is automatically withdrawn from the judge’s file if he or she faces no disciplinary or criminal prosecution within a year of being notified of it. In this regard, the safeguards should have also included that no remark can be issued without first interviewing the judge concerned.

Eighth, the bill stipulates a general assembly of judges that convenes annually. It also grants the SJC, or any group of 50 judges, the ability to call such an assembly. Establishing this assembly allows judges to collectively discuss the judiciary’s affairs, compensating for the absence of general assemblies on the level of the Courts of Appeal.

On the other hand, the bill fails to regulate the procedures for judges to compete as candidates for important judicial positions, contrary to the emphasis that the Venice Commission placed on this issue. This flaw could be overcome by tasking the SJC with regulating the candidacy procedures for any judicial position requiring the sixth grade or higher. The SJC could also fill the gap via its own statute.

Equal Access to Judicial Office

The bill works to establish reasonable requirements for entering the judiciary. The exam for entry into the Institute of Judicial Studies (IJS) remains the usual pathway, as is clear from the bill’s stipulation that the number of judges appointed from outside the IJS (from among lawyers and judicial assistants) may at no time exceed 10% of the number of working judges.

In this regard, the bill follows the Justice Forum’s recommendation to remove the preparatory year because of the unjustified restrictions it would impose on access to judicial office. The bill also includes a provision that opens the door for candidates with disabilities if the official medical committee certifies that they have no illnesses or impairments that would prevent them from assuming the job’s burdens, as appeared in the Legal Agenda’s 2018 bill. While the bill retains the SJC’s power to exclude candidates based on an oral interview, contrary to the Legal Agenda’s bill, it does allow challenges to decisions to exclude candidates from the exam, which will hopefully limit the arbitrary exercise of this power.

The bill also removes the obstacles to challenges by candidates who fail the exams for entry into the judiciary or the IJS and by trainee judges subject to declarations of incapacity, thereby enshrining the right to litigate.

Guaranteeing the Necessary Judicial Capacities

Besides the above, the bill contains several articles that make the necessary judicial capacities available while also working to boost them and prevent them from being squandered, thereby guaranteeing that all citizens can enjoy their right to litigate before a competent and effective judge.

First, the bill tasks the SJC with determining the judicial judiciary’s need for new judges based on clear criteria. The justice minister must then announce an exam as soon as the necessary funds are secured.

Second, the bill enshrines judges’ right to continuous training and their duty to take such training in the IJS. This it does by establishing the position of the director of continuous training and judicial research. This provision should ensure judges’ academic development and promote communication among them and collective thinking on jurisprudence trends.

Third, the bill requires that an official file be created for every judge and that judges undergo periodic evaluation (every four years). It also establishes the ability to declare the incapacity of any judge who obtains the worst evaluation rating twice in a row.

Fourth, the bill limits judges’ ability to conduct nonjudicial activities. While this provision excludes teaching, it establishes a limit of 120 hours per year outside of office hours and requires prior approval from the SJC.

Fifth, the bill only allows secondment to Central Inspection, the Civil Service Council, and the Supreme Discipline Authority. It also prohibits the appointment of any judge to more than one committee or administrative body of a judicial nature at a time, makes such appointments conditional on SJC approval based on a report by the Evaluation Committee, and limits them to a maximum period of five years in the one committee.

The Cassation Public Prosecution

In this area comes one of the most important reforms inspired by the Legal Agenda’s bill and former justice minister Marie-Claude Najm’s commentary on the Administration and Justice Committee’s bill. This reform consists of curbing the hierarchical authority that the 2001 law amending the Code of Criminal Procedure granted to the cassation public prosecutor (authority that was introduced by then cassation public prosecutor Adnan Addoum).

The reform consists of several controls, the most important being the following:

• The cassation public prosecutor’s instructions must be written, explained, and deposited in the file of the case concerned. These restrictions ensure that the cassation public prosecutor is accountable for the instructions he or she delivers and limits the arbitrary exercise of this power. They also enable the litigants concerned to exercise all their rights as they can view the instructions in the file.
• The cassation public prosecutor’s instructions must go through the chain of command. In other words, the bill requires them to be delivered to the advocates-general not directly but via the various public prosecutors, thereby allowing the latter to play some role in limiting arbitrariness.

In conclusion, the bill is particularly significant from three angles:

First, most of the reforms that it includes are based on the Justice Forum’s work, which reflected societal maturity in this realm. This aspect gives the bill a participatory character and eases any resistance to its implementation. These are reforms that made their way into people’s hearts through public debate and appropriate participatory mechanisms before making their way into legal text. Although they fall short of some people’s hopes, the emergence of the reforms (or at least most of them) in such a manner gives them greater strength and sturdiness.

Second, although the bill generally adheres to international standards, it deviates from them in some aspects mostly related to judicial sector, political, and sectarian sensitivities. Hence, we hope that the bill will create a new environment for judges that strengthens trust among them and society’s trust in them, thereby eroding these sensitivities and creating a climate more conducive to subsequent reform. The final stage in Parliament may also produce new consensuses that strengthen the bill’s reformist character, either by adding more safeguards of judicial independence or more safeguards for litigants. The most important thing is that the judicial authorities and parties concerned work to couple the legal text that Parliament adopts with best practices in several areas, particularly inspection, evaluation, and candidacy mechanisms. The law’s success will depend on the establishment of best practices in this regard.

Finally, the bill has come at a time when the public authorities have pledged to accomplish the necessary reforms to strengthen the state institutions. Moreover, there is a prevailing public sense that reforms are needed to restore people’s hope in their nation and future after decades of systematic destruction of these institutions.

Final Comments and Recommendations

Given all the above, and while once again welcoming the bill and – most importantly – the government’s engagement in judicial reform as promised in its policy statement, the Legal Agenda makes the following recommendations for strengthening the bill’s conformance with judicial independence standards:

• Task the SJC with establishing candidacy procedures for judicial positions that require the sixth grade or higher, in keeping with the Venice Commission’s recommendation to establish clear mechanisms for prioritizing the criterion of competence.
• Reduce the SJC majority needed to override any disagreement with the justice minister about the personnel charts from a seven-member majority to an absolute majority, pursuant to the Venice Commission’s recommendations.
• Affirm that all individual, organizational, and disciplinary decisions made by the SJC, as an administrative body, are challengeable before the State Council, pursuant to the principle of the natural judge.
• Remove the duty to deliver prior notification of media appearances in order to avoid any pressure being placed on freedom of expression.
• Establish a mechanism for overcoming government obstruction to the appointment of the ex officio members of the SJC and the general inspectors and inspectors of the JIA. For example, the SJC could be granted decision-making power in the case that the appointment decrees are not issued within a specific timeframe.