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APPEAL TO INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATIONS DR MUHAMMAD MUGHRABY April 29, 2000 To
my Colleagues and Friends in Human Rights Organizations Worldwide, Greetings: Elements of the Lebanese
government began a fresh effort to put me in jail for my campaign to restore
independence and integrity to the Lebanese justice system.
As the purpose of this campaign is to safeguard the basic guarantees of
human and civil rights, I ask for your support.
Here is the story. My work in human rights has
always included the defense of students, political activists and dispossessed
landlords and tenants before criminal, military and civil courts.
This experience alerted me to the serious shortcomings of Lebanese
justice, and how it is heavily influenced by political pressure, lack of
independence and the steady deterioration in integrity. Hence I have concentrated for
years on campaigning for integrity in, and reform of, the justice system. This campaign accelerated after the resignation of the Hariri
cabinet in November 1998. Unfortunately, corruption so far survives under the
current government. Since last
summer, I gave three press conferences and one lecture to an audience of
lawyers, published one major newspaper article and made several published
comments on the subject. The most recent press
conference, which I gave on April 19, 2000, was titled: Disclosures Related to
the Symptoms of the Integrity Crisis within the Judicial Power, Facts and
Documents. A few days later, a
story was printed in several morning papers, without giving a source, alleging
that the Higher Judicial Council, an organ with limited powers which mostly
reports to the minister of justice, had considered the contents of my various
conferences and made a decision to refer the same to the office of the
prosecutor general. This
constituted a threat that penal charges could be brought against me rather than
investigating the disclosures I made. It
prompted me, on April 26, 2000, to issue a statement. On April 28, 2000, several
Lebanese papers published a story to the effect that the Beirut prosecutor, Mr.
Joseph Mamari, brought charges against me claiming that I “was caught in the
act” of defaming the judiciary! I
telephoned Mamari and he confirmed the story but refused to disclose the
substance of the alleged crime or the referenced article in the penal code. Article 79 of the Legal
Profession Code makes it unlawful to prosecute a member of the profession
without prior authorization of the Council of the Bar.
On three different prior occasions, requests were made for my prosecution
for human rights causes, which were all denied. The prosecutors appealed in all
three proceedings. One of the
appeals was dismissed and the others are still pending.
One involves a fax I had sent to Amnesty International on the subject of
the prosecution and torture of two men, an architect and an insurance executive,
and three women including an educator. The
government had intercepted the fax and claims that it was defamatory to itself.
The other is based on an absurd allegation by Solidere that I had
employed Syrian workers to destroy its properties in Central Beirut! This time, the prosecutor was in a great hurry and by maintaining that “I was caught in the act” he sought to exempt himself from the legal obligation to first seek the authorization of the Council of the Bar! He allegedly based his prosecution on the contents of a story carried by a Beirut newspaper, Ash-Shark. Obviously I do not publish or control Ash-Shark. In all events, Mr. Mamari’s allegations are false and baseless. Moreover, he has a serious conflict of interest problem and he should have excused himself from acting in the case. He is directly implicated in my accusations of April 19, 2000, and his older brother, a more senior judge, is one of the judges I accused of taking illegal payments from CDR on behalf of Solidere. In my press conference of
October 14, 1999, I disclosed that the judges heading the various committees
charged with assessing the value of the properties taken by Solidere, which put
ridiculously low values on the said properties, received illegal payments from
the Council on Development and Reconstruction (CDR) on behalf of Solidere. The
Court of Accounts discovered the discrepancy and ordered the CDR to recover the
monies from the company. Hence the
CDR was compelled to bring action against Solidere for restitution of the
amounts in question which exceed five billion Lebanese Pounds. In my latest press
conference, I made specific accusations of insufficient integrity naming a
number of judges, which I backed by documents.
For example, one of the highest-ranking judges was unlawfully exempted,
through a document issued by another high ranking judge, from paying transfer
taxes on his purchase of property. Still
another high ranking judge, acting as the appointed caretaker of the properties
of an absentee distant cousin who immigrated to Brazil half a century ago,
sought and received authority from other judges to assign the property of the
immigrant relative to his Judge’s daughter.
The judge executed a deed actually transferring the title to his
daughter. I also called for the
resignation of the Minister of Justice, Joseph Shawool, himself a former senior
administrative judge, for failing to advance and implement new policies aimed at
restoring the independence and integrity of the justice system and for reserving
his old post and leaving it vacant.! I was hoping that the
government would open an investigation into the events I disclosed.
But instead the Beirut prosecutor, obviously acting on orders from higher
or parallel authorities, decided that I was defaming the system of justice by
daring to point out its shortcomings and calling for reform and the restoration
of integrity. They are clearly seeking to silence legitimate protests and calls
for reform and integrity. The
existing system is tragically short on the rights of defense and the application
of guarantees of civil and human rights provided by the Lebanese constitution
and the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. I remain strongly convinced
that, without restoring independence and integrity to the system, there is no
way to safeguard these rights as well as other basic rights of the Lebanese.
Therefore, your support is urgently requested in any way or form.
Thank you in advance. Sincerely yours,
Muhamad Mugraby P.S. For those who wish to have an update of my personal Biography, please open the attached file. |
