Lebanon has been living for too long under a system which does not consider integrity as a necessity and pre-requisite for good governance, but a menace.
This is why when one lawyer, yours truly, embarks on a campaign to expose the integrity crisis in the judiciary by facts and documents, with the hope of succeeding in sharpening the public awareness as to the urgent need for reform, a coalition of high judges is instantly formed which mounts a frontal attack on the lawyer.
The president, prime minister and minister of justice all sit idle and observe full silence as the high judges provide one evidence after the other of their abuse of power and contempt for the rule of law
It is strange indeed: One high judge, Afif Shamseddine, chief of the criminal chamber of the court of cassation, and chairman of the Judges Benevolent Fund, issues in his latter capacity a certificate of tax exemption to Judge Walid Ghomra, Chief of the Judicial Inspection Bureau, so that Judge Ghomra is able to avoid paying transfer and stamp taxes on the purchase of property, as well as avoid paying annual property taxes altogether and forever. In self-defense, Judge Ghomra complains that many other judges received similar papers from Judge Shamseddine with similar benefits. The Fund, not its beneficiaries, is exempt by law from such taxes on the purchase of property intended for its housing projects. Although Judge Shamseddine falsely so asserted, none of the judges who received the tax exemption was granted a housing loan from the Fund.
Another high judge received a ruling from a tribunal authorizing him to sell and transfer to his own daughter the property of a poor soul who immigrated from Lebanon to Brazil over seventy five years ago, and who is probably dead by now. The abuse of power goes on and on. No accountability, no responsibility, and no remorse.
The current confrontation over the integrity crisis in the Lebanese judiciary is of major scandalous proportions. The only way to bring it to a satisfactory end is for lots of heads to role. Judicial reform has long been overdue.