The Administration of Justice in Palestine: The Enhanced Role of the High Judicial Council and the Marginalised Role of the Ministry of Justice

Abstract

There is no comprehensive definition of the concept “administration of justice”. Instead, most definitions seem to be a kind of listing the duties of certain components of the system, i.e., the Police, the Public Prosecution and the Courts. Meanwhile, the administration of a judicial system should be adapted to the social, economical and cultural values of the society. Such adaptation should be clear in the structure, process, values, responses, etc. Of course, the protection of the litigants’ rights would be the core concern, but priorities would be activated too. On the other hand, the management in the justice field means partially “directing the efforts of the personnel and getting benefit of the available resources to achieve the objectives of the system”. The decentralisation is an important input in this context. Although the other components of the criminal justice system have been characterised as bureaucratic, the characteristics of bureaucracies do not apply to courts. On the contrary, courts have typical organisation and different style of administration due to their unique structure. The court is, somehow, an autonomous body which does not report to a certain figure in the chain of command as any figure does in bureaucracies. The bureaucratic management and administration style does not suit the courts therefore the cooperative and the interdependent relationship between the judge, the public prosecutor and the defense attorney would diminish if the judge insists on being treated with great deference.