Lawyers' citizenship or residency status dictate their ability to represent clients. Those in the Occupied Territories (OPT) may only work in military courts and are constrained by checkpoints and other travel restrictions from visiting clients. Meeting them inside Israel is nearly impossible as travel permits are rarely given for "security reasons."
As a rule, West Bank attorneys see clients for the first time on hearing days and only a few minutes in advance. Gaza ones can't represent West Bank clients because travel permission is nearly impossible to get. It means judicial fairness and international law are severely compromised from the start.
Lawyers with Jerusalem IDs face other obstacles. They may take the Israeli Bar Association test to be licensed in Israeli courts. However, those passing the Palestinian Bar must apply annually to the Israeli Department of Justice for permission to represent clients in military courts and to visit them at interrogation centers and prisons.
Lawyers who are Israeli citizens, Arabs and Jews, may represent clients in military and civil courts, including the High Court, and may apply for permission to visit clients in detention. However, they may not enter Gaza or Area A (under Palestinian control) in the West Bank.
Obstacles to A Legal Defense
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits:
"Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not....regardless of their motive."
Nonetheless, the IDF regularly moves Palestinian prisoners from the West Bank to Israeli-based detention and interrogation centers (including the secret "Facility 1391") and prisons.
After arrest and initial detention, Palestinians go first to interrogation centers. They may be held without judicial order for eight days and thereafter indefinitely. Lawyers have no access for up to 90 days, and prisoners have virtually no other outside contact during detention.
Following interrogation, they may either be released, formally charged, or placed under indefinite administrative detention. Those charged are transferred to Israeli prisons to await trial. Bail is almost never allowed. Administrative detainees are taken to Israeli prisons for six months after which they're subject to indefinite extensions.
Lawyers find it difficult to impossible to visit clients because restrictions "are so onerous" that most don't even try, except for the brief moments they're allowed before hearings begin.
In addition, learning where clients are held is so daunting that one attorney said:
"I feel like they're using these procedures to pressure lawyers like me to quit."
However, under military orders, authorities are obligated to inform families where prisoners are held and when they're moved. A central database is also maintained. Attorneys are supposed to have access, but getting it is hard, and the information in it often is inaccurate and not up to date.
Even worse, under Israeli law and military orders, Palestinian prisoners accused of being "security threats" may be prohibited from consulting an attorney - in military courts for up to 90 days and in civil ones up to three weeks. Appeals to the High Court may be made, but only by lawyers with Israeli citizenship or Israeli NGOs.
Permission is required to see clients in prison, but only on certain days, under imposed restrictions, and all prisons have their own procedures. Jewish lawyers are less impeded than Arab ones, but obstacles impeding judicial fairness hamper prisoners and counsel throughout the judicial process.
