The following speech was delivered by the Legal Agenda in a press conference on 12 March 2025. The conference addressed a State Council decision holding the state responsible for the injustice that stage actor Ziad Itani suffered in 2018 after he was falsely accused of collaboration with the Israeli enemy.

“Ziad Itani’s case is a case that cannot be forgotten” – with these words, we introduced the petition that we filed on behalf of Itani to the State Council approximately five years ago. The case aimed to compel the state not only to compensate him but also, and most importantly, to thoroughly examine the grave errors that were committed by its security, judicial, and administrative apparatuses, errors that combined to allow the injustice to reach this magnitude. Such scandals should cause widespread pangs of conscience that pave the way for serious thought about their causes and the reforms necessary to prevent them from recurring. However, the public authorities thought it sufficed to merely drop the charges against Itani and offer him a few apologetic and sympathetic words without making any effort to compensate him, just as it does with thousands of victims of war, corruption, and maladministration on the basis of “let bygones be bygones”. They sought to reduce the injustice to a false accusation made by certain individuals, rather than reviewing or holding anyone accountable for the errors and failures that their apparatuses committed. Hence, the primary goal of resorting to the State Council, which came before and after many other legal and judicial steps, was to overcome breaches of justice and call upon the state to, if only once, think seriously about the justice system and reforming the defects that caused this injustice. That way, it would serve as a wake-up call to reform our institutions so that such injustices – which continue to occur daily, mostly under the cover of darkness and silence – are not repeated.

By ruling in favor of the petition, the judges of the chamber that examined it – namely Walid Jaber, Chantal Abou Yazbeck, and Sara Rammal – declared their commitment to the judiciary’s role in protecting rights and freedoms and consolidating the legality of the state. While the decision compels the state to pay Itani compensation for the injustice against him (the first compensation to be granted to him even though senior state officials acknowledged the gravity of the harm he suffered), it also clearly identifies institutional transgressions and thereby paves the way for extremely important reform work in the realm of justice as a whole.

The most important initial mistakes that the decision establishes include those that obstructed the rights of Itani, like thousands of other citizens, to a fair trial.

The State Council dwelled for more than two pages on the “black room with hanging metal hooks”. One of State Security’s personnel has admitted that this room exists to the Military Court, and the state did not deny it in its response in this case. Although the State Council deemed that it cannot enforce accountability for the acts of torture themselves because they fall under the criminal judiciary’s jurisdiction, it found that it can examine the actions of the security agencies and the administrations, which must take all necessary measures to prevent acts of torture. Such measures include, in particular, preventing the creation of such rooms because of the horror, intimidation, and torture they engender or enable. Consequently, the decision affirms that the state erred by not protecting Itani from the crime of torture and not taking the measures necessary to prevent acts of torture. It thereby implicitly establishes that torture by State Security is not a result of individual mistakes; rather, it occurs in a systematic manner that necessitates an immediate effort to scrutinize and question the entire agency and its methods. In this way, the decision seems to reflect implicit frustration that this state of affairs persists despite such compelling evidence of the existence of a room full of such darkness.

Along the same lines of guaranteeing fair trials, the State Council focused on the state’s failure to protect the confidentiality of the investigation and ensure that the presumption of innocence is respected. Because of this failure, accusations of collaboration against Itani spread among the public, and he was stigmatized for having allegedly betrayed his nation. Consequently, his rights were flouted, and he was held in solitary confinement and illegally prevented for weeks from contacting his relatives or lawyer. Notably, the State Council placed the responsibility here not only on State Security (which issued two statements about the case) but also on the Supreme Defense Council. This council, the decision says, failed to take any measure whatsoever to correct the course of the work of State Security (which is subordinate to it), hold the agency accountable, or compensate Itani for the wrongdoings he suffered as a result of the agency’s actions.

Just as importantly, the decision finds the state responsible for undermining the presumption of innocence because of the National Media Council’s failure to monitor the work of media outlets and, in particular, alert them to the consequences of publishing the details of Itani’s preliminary investigation. In this regard, the decision confronts all public authorities (Parliament as well as the government) with their responsibility for keeping this council active even though its members’ terms ended in 2008 without any replacements being appointed. This caused and continues to cause grave professional errors of which the error in Itani’s case is but one. From this angle, the decision highlights the importance of regulating media outlets and ensuring that they adhere to professional principles in order to prevent them from being harnessed to undermine justice, whether by violating the presumption of innocence or obscuring the responsibility of the wrongdoers.

The other foundational aspect of the State Council’s decision is that it holds the state authorities and institutions responsible not only for their failure to hold State Security to account but also – strikingly – for granting perks or promotions to State Security officers who participated in the offenses. The decision deems these promotions tantamount to yet another violation of the rights of victims, including Itani. In other words, the decision holds the state responsible not just for failing to ask the Public Prosecution to pursue the officers involved (a power to which the minister of justice objected at the time) but also, and equally, for rewarding them. This approach, if embraced, would constitute an extremely important turning point under a system of widespread impunity. It would also constitute an equally important turning point in the way that appointments and promotions are currently made, which normalizes and perpetuates injustices. For any minister tempted to neglect accountability or pay excessive courtesy to one party or another while trivializing the risks to citizens, this State Council decision makes it clear that ignoring wrongdoings or paying courtesy to the perpetrators will threaten the state’s interests and expose it – as well as said minister – to accountability.

From all these angles, this decision is tantamount to an announcement that justice has been done. It is a justice compelled by the grievance of a person who insisted on fighting for his rights and found himself fighting for us all, for a capable and just state worthy of the name. We can only hope that the government reads this decision well and takes the initiative to put it fully into effect.

This article is an edited translation from Arabic.