LEGAL NEEDS دراسة حول االحتياجات القانونية in East Jerusalem في القدس الشرقية
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LEGAL NEEDS دراسة حول االحتياجات القانونية in East Jerusalem في القدس الشرقية December 2016 كانون أول 2016 This report was commissioned by UNDP and authored by Diana Buttu in December 2016 and published in the context of the “Building a Sustainable Legal Aid System in Palestine” Project funded by the European Union through the Sawasya UNDP / UN Women Joint Programme. The views expressed in this publication are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of UNDP, UN Women, the United Nations or any of its affiliated organisations, the Government of the Netherlands, the Swedish Government, the Swedish International Development Cooperation or the European Union. Table of Contents A. Introduction ..............................................................................................................................................................3 B. Engaging the Israeli Legal System ......................................................................................................4 C. Legal Assistance Needs ..................................................................................................................................8 1. Residency, Family Unification, and Child Registration .............................................................................. 8 2. Limited Political Rights ................................................................................................................................................................12 3. High Rates of Poverty....................................................................................................................................................................12 4. Education Shortages......................................................................................................................................................................15 5. Land and Planning Crisis ...........................................................................................................................................................18 6. WASH and Other Services ........................................................................................................................................................20 7. The Wall .........................................................................................................................................................................................................22 8. Violence .........................................................................................................................................................................................................24 Table 1: Summary areas of legal need in East Jerusalem ...........................................................................25 D. Legal Responses ................................................................................................................................................26 1. Legal Assistance ..................................................................................................................................................................................26 2. More individual cases than public interest cases .........................................................................................27 a. Domestic remedies .........................................................................................................................................................28 b. Inadequate funding structure for public interest cases .....................................................................28 c. Public interest cases not usually within mandate .................................................................................29 3. Advocacy efforts differ across organisations .....................................................................................................29 4. Lack of political support to legal efforts .................................................................................................................31 E. Gaps in Legal Assistance ............................................................................................................................32 Table 2: Areas of Legal Assistance by Topic ................................................................................................................33 F. Recommendations and Conclusions ...............................................................................................35 ANNEXES ..........................................................................................................................................................................38 ANNEX I: Interviews ...............................................................................................................................................................................39 ANNEX II: Legal Framework ..........................................................................................................................................................40 1. Occupation of East Jerusalem .....................................................................................................................................40 2. Legal System in East Jerusalem ..................................................................................................................................41 A. Introduction This legal needs study was commissioned by the UNDP and its Sawasya Joint Programme and funded with support from the European Union under the “Building a Sustainable Legal Aid System in Palestine” Project, to support the development of a strategy tailored to the specific and evolving legal needs of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem. A number of sources were consulted during the research phase, to obtain a comprehensive picture of the legal assistance currently provided, including existing literature and studies on the status of Palestinians in Jerusalem and, their needs in light of their particular legal circumstances, as will be further outlined below. Interviewees included UNDP’s partner organisations, non-partner organisations, academics and scholars, and representatives from think tanks, international NGOs, the international donor community and UN institutions based in Jerusalem and Ramallah. Recommendations were also validated by partner NGOs in workshops. Please see Annex A for a list of those interviewed. For the purposes of this study, the terms “Jerusalem” and “East Jerusalem” refer to the Israeli-defined municipal Jerusalem. Use of this term does not imply legal recognition of the boundaries of Jerusalem; it only illustrates the plethora of political, legal, and social problems caused by the drawing of this boundary, for which legal assistance is needed. The objective of this study is to provide insight into[1]: • Current legal needs of Palestinians in Jerusalem; • The legal needs that NGOs and other development actors are addressing; • The gaps, if any, in legal assistance or coverage; • The role of the Palestinian Authority in addressing the legal needs of Palestinians in Jerusalem; and • Potential areas of engagement for the Sawasya programme, successor programmes and partners in East Jerusalem, and potential mechanisms that could be developed to most effectively support these areas of engagement. Each of these questions will be answered in turn below. [1] Other questions were raised throughout this study, many of which cannot be answered in this study. These include: What is the percentage of Palestinians that turn to private legal assistance in comparison to public legal aid? Why do Palestinians turn to private legal assistance? 3 B. Engaging the Israeli Legal System Before addressing the issues where legal assistance is needed, it is first necessary to examine the utility of engaging the Israeli legal system and the ramifications of doing so.[2] While it is clear that Israel’s annexation of Jerusalem is illegal and that under international law, the extension of Israeli law is illegal (Israel must maintain, “unless absolutely necessary” those laws that were in place prior to the occupation), legal assistance focuses on addressing Israeli action through Israeli domestic law and turns a blind eye to the illegality at the heart of the justice system in Jerusalem. Others take the approach that in case of serious issues (e.g. residency, social benefits, detention etc.) that directly impact the daily lives of Palestinian families and individuals, from a humanitarian perspective Palestinians, do not have the “luxury” of boycotting the ‘justice’ system. There is currently no viable alternative. If, on balance, after accepting the illegality of the current legal regime in East Jerusalem, one considers that there are sufficient humanitarian and pragmatic grounds to engage with the Israeli legal system, one must consider whether the engagement is tantamount to legitimation of an illegal occupation. The legitimation claim, in this context, is that by using the legal system, lawyers and activists are giving legitimacy to Israel’s legal system and its jurisdiction over Palestinians in East Jerusalem.[3] Boycotts of the Israeli legal system have been attempted in the past, unsuccessfully. For example, in 1967, Palestinian lawyers began a protracted strike to protest the occupation and the removal of the Jordanian courts in favour of the Israeli court system.[4] Other strikes, such as the refusal of defendants to engage in the military court system, lasted briefly before