Occupied Palestine , ALRAY - Administrative detention, or detention without trial, isn’t merely seen in Israel as a legitimate tactic intended to fight what they claimed terrorism; it has also become a routine tactic, which is used “in times of necessity” against Palestinians and in some times Israelis, Haaretz paper reported Wednesday.

The paper explained in a report that the definition of “necessity” is left to the Shin Bet security service, which receives almost automatic backing from judges. Only in rare cases do the latter bother to scrutinize the “necessity” in depth or set conditions on employing an administrative detention order.

 
Suspects and their lawyers are not allowed to see the classified material submitted to the court in support of such orders, nor they are entitled to demand that the ordinary laws of evidence be applied.

The paper accused the Israeli government of violating the law. It said that the purpose of such detentions is to bypass the legal system, since whatever evidence investigators possess evidently is not sufficient for an indictment.

It is true that international conventions permit administrative detention, but they state clearly that this tactic can be used only in the most exceptional cases, during a state of emergency, when the nation faces an extremely severe threat.

The paper reported that the orders signed by Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman permitted six months of detention, but the Israeli court later reduced one suspect’s detention to two months. The suspicions that led to the detention orders are unknown, but because none of the detainees belongs to any political organization, the prevailing assessment is that they were detained over something they posted on social media.

Administrative detention is not just a serious violation of the fundamental rights of both citizens of Israel and residents of the occupied territories. It also reveals the security services’ fear that a fair legal system operating under binding legal rules would not grant appropriate backing to the war on terror. This is an unacceptable claim, which is liable to be repeated in the future in the battles against crime, traffic accidents and any other violation of the law that law enforcement agencies can’t cope with via proper legal procedures.

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The paper stressed that Administrative detention is no substitute for the law and the judicial process, and it must be abolished.