Souheil Abboud at the head of a High Judicial Council emptied of its members. (Photo provided to L'Orient-Le Jour)
The Lebanese institutions are hollowing out, one after another. On Monday, the Higher Judicial Council (HJC) lost all its members, except for its president Souheil Abboud. The vacancy at the relevant political institutions has obstructed the appointment of their successors.
Of the eight members who made up the HJC when it was formed on Oct. 12, 2021, two members — former Head of the Judicial Inspection Commission, Bourkan Saad, and former Public prosecutor Ghassan Oueidat — retired in 2022 and 2023 respectively. Since then, the cabinet has failed to replace them due to political disagreements.
Unlike Judge Abboud, who will reach full retirement age in 2028, the three-years term of office of five HJC members ended on Monday. They include Afif Hakim, whose peers at the Court of Cassation had voted for him to represent them at the HJC. The judges at the Court of Cassation were supposed to elect two HJC members among themselves.
Nevertheless, Judge Hakim was the only one elected, because six chambers presidents of the Court of Cassation also retired, and have not been replaced. This is added to the fact that other chamber presidents, who were HJC members at the time, could not stand for a second term as per the law.
The four other judges, Dany Shebli, Mireille Haddad, Habib Mezher and Elias Risha, whose tenure also expired, were appointed by a cabinet decree for a three year period.
The HJC is made up of 10 judges, but in 2021, only eight posts were filled. In addition to the fact that the Court of Cassation’s judges did not elect a second member, the cabinet failed to appoint the fifth member to this body for the same reasons why the Court of Cassation couldn't not elect a second member.
The appointment of judges to these key judicial posts seems far-fetched. Constitution expert Saeed Malek noted that this problem stems from the fact that Lebanon has neither a president nor a fully-fledged cabinet.
“According to the law, eight of the 10 HJC members shall be appointed by a decree that shall be issued as per a proposal by the justice minister, who shall sign it along with the finance minister, the prime minister and the president of the republic,” he said.
A part of the HJC’s remit involves holding competitive examinations for admission to the judiciary, supervising the magistrates, in addition to judicial appointments and reshuffles, which shall be carried out in collaboration with the justice minister.
According to Malek, however, the HJC president has the power to appoint judges to specific posts on his own. He recalled that in the absence of a caretaker cabinet decision, it was judge Abboud who entrusted the cassation’s prosecutor’s office to Jamal Hajjar in February 2023. Hajjar thus replaced his predecessor Ghassan Oueidat upon his retirement.
An informed judicial source said that, despite the institutional collapse in the country, the HJC president will not allow the judiciary to be paralyzed. To this end, he intends to cooperate with caretaker Justice Minister Henri Khoury, acting Top Prosecutor Hajjar, and the Head of the Judicial Inspection Commission, Samar Sawah.
Speaking to L’Orient-Le Jour, Executive Director of Legal Agenda Nizar Saghieh said that this “jurisprudence” is possible, and noted that it already applies to the State Shura Council, whose board lost four of its seven members, hence its quorum.
Saghieh explained that this solution could be resorted to given that it’s impossible for the body to fulfill its functions. This option, however, is “controversial” the lawyer said, because it makes the man who will practically exercise the prerogatives of the body in question “a superman”. “It’s a patch work” that would cause “further harm” to the independence of the judiciary, Saghieh said.
