ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR SYRIAN REFUGEES IN LEBANON
Centre International des Sciences de l'Homme (CISH-UNESCO)
Karim El Mufti
November
2015
Rationale
With
the outbreak of war in neighbouring Syria, Lebanon is hosting a growing Syrian
refugee population (estimated today at 1.1 million). Struggling between its
international obligations under humanitarian principles and security and
terrorism concerns, the Lebanese government has sent mixed signals as to how to
deal with the Syrian refugees (displaced as per the official rhetoric). As a
result, the Syrian refugee population in Lebanon is vulnerable and has
difficulties accessing basic elements of justice.
International
Alert, the Lebanese American University and the International Centre For Human
Sciences (CISH) in Byblos has joined efforts under a NWO-WOTRO grant for
Science for Global Development on Embedding Justice in Power and Politics
(Netherlands) to further study the Access to Justice of Syrian refugees in
Lebanon. Using quantitative data extracted from a selection of Lebanese Courts’
decisions, this paper aims to identify the professional trend of the Lebanese
Judiciary towards Syrian defendants in conflict with the Lebanese law.
Methodology
Between February
and June 2015, the author and his team worked on collecting lawsuits details of
criminal type, involving Syrian nationals living in Lebanon (either as
plaintiff or defendant) from three specific Court jurisdictions in Lebanon: Beirut
Registry; Zahle Registry; Tripoli Registry, each in one of its chambers. The
data collected form the sample used in this study and offer an important
overview of the different elements of the cases such as: nationality of
plaintiff/defendant and gender; date of arrest; list of charges; date of first
judicial hearing; nature of court’s jurisdiction; name of the sitting judge and
status of lawsuit, whether it ended, and if so if the plaintiff was convicted
or released.
The dates of
these court cases stretch from June 2011 to April 2015 (based on date of arrest
of the defendant). The latest court decision in this survey is dated 30 May
2015.
Out of the three
geographically different registries in Beirut, Zahle and Tripoli, a total of 807 lawsuits were identified
involving a Syrian national as a defendant, in addition to lawsuits where both
plaintiffs and defendants were Syrians.
The study of
this large sample of cases is deemed useful to identify a number of items that
interest the larger research of the consortium, such as:
-
Nature of most
common charges filed against Syrian nationals in Lebanon since the start of the
crisis in Syria.
-
Outcome of these
lawsuits as to the ability of Syrian nationals to acquire a solid judicial
defence.
-
The sentencing
policy of the Lebanese judiciary in these cases when it comes to Syrian
nationals.
Full study available on this link.
