On Thursday, 3 September 2015, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights opened a specialized training course for lawyers entitled, “Developing Lawyers’ Skills in Palestinian Law, International Humanitarian Law, and Human Rights Law”. Approximately 30 practicing lawyers will attend the course, which will be held at the restaurant Roots. The course consists of 150 training hours to be delivered in periodic sessions over the course of 25 days. This is the thirteenth successive year that Al Mezan has facilitated the training.

Mrs. Shirin Al Shobaki, Coordinator of the Training and Mass Communication Unit at Al Mezan, opened the course by welcoming the participants and expressing her hopes that the course would meet their expectations; increasing and developing their skills and adding to both their practical and theoretical knowledge. She thanked the participants for their commitment to the course and for their efforts to make it a success. She also emphasized the importance of maintaining an open-line of communication with Al Mezan in order to stay up to date with the Center’s publications and activities. She added that Al Mezan would always welcome future cooperation with all participants in this and other courses implemented by the Center.

Mrs. Al Shobaki stated that the course aims to promote human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) by increasing lawyers’ awareness of human rights concepts. This is a crucial task in the oPt, where Palestinians are living under continuing Israeli military occupation and where human rights violations against civilians are a regular occurrence.

Mrs. Al Shobaki mentioned as well that 125 lawyers applied to participate  in the course. Al Mezan therefore decided to conduct three consecutive training courses in 2015 and 2016. Mrs. Al Shobaki emphasized the important role of lawyers in achieving justice and the need for lawyers to be knowledgeable in international humanitarian law and human rights law in order to be able to confront the flagrant violations committed in the context of the Israeli occupation.

The first five training days have passed and the participants were introduced to the lawyer's code of professional responsibility; legal practice between law and reality; the International Bill of Human Rights; economic, social, and cultural rights; the separation of powers and the rule of law; the role of the Advisory and Legislation Bureau and mechanism of discussing and ratifying the law in the Legislative Council; elections appeal procedures, monitoring elections, the reality of the Palestinian judiciary, and the international principles of fair trial.  

This course is part of Al Mezan’s core program that aims to enhance and promote principles of human rights and international humanitarian law.