The Adjustment of the Palestinian Laws and the Standing Orders of the PLC with the Amended Basic Law

The lecture was organized in cooperation between the Iol and the Palestinian Legislative Council. The lecturer started by giving a general idea about the legislative process in Palestine, and the constitutional framework and relevant political events before and after Oslo. He browsed a package of Palestinian laws (tourism, criminal procedures, environment, investment, public meetings) and the PLC standing order and explained the main problems regarding these laws and the reasons why it contradicted the basic law, for example: The laws that are replaced by new ones are not automatically cancelled. Both investment laws of 1996 and 1998 are in-effect at the same time, some laws are amended by presidential decree, some laws established prior to the Basic Law are based on the standing orders of the PLC, and new laws replaced others that were implemented either in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip without referring to the geographic origin of replaced laws. The lecture was followed by questions that focused on the need for a plan to review and amend the Palestinian laws to be consistence with the basic law, the status of laws published before the basic law, and the need for real constitutional court.

A number of PNA legal advisors, lawyers and interested people attended the encounter. The total was 25 participants.