Palestinian Authority (PA) chief Mahmoud Abbas has issued an edict amending the code of criminal procedures in order to give the attorney general wide powers to take measures against citizens including imposing travel bans.
A human rights source said on condition of anonymity that the new law amendment would affect the PA’s obligations towards human rights including the right to travel.
The source condemned the step saying that Abbas had exploited the absence of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) which he marginalized in the West Bank and appointed himself a legislator.
He added that the new decree joined dozens of decisions that had been previously issued by Abbas without getting approvals from the PLC.
For his part Ammar Duwaik director of the Independent Commission for Human Rights said if the news about Abbas’s order to amend the code of criminal procedures was true it would be the most serious decision taken against the rights of citizens since the inception of the PA.
“Such step does not bode well and it will take us to a new level of appropriating the basic rights that are enshrined in the basic law” he stated.
