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Abstract
During the last year, the Palestinian President, Mahmoud Abbas, has issued more than seventy decrees-by-law, which are legislative tools that the Palestinian Basic Law allows the President to use only in cases of emergency. However, the President has never shown in any of those decrees-by-law that they were issued to face an emergency, which is an immense, imminent danger that may solely be stopped with a decree-by-law. This is a significant increase in the number of decrees-by-law that the President has issued between 2007, the year in which the coup d’état occurred in Palestine, and 2021, which amounts to thirty decrees-by-law per year. This increase might be the result of Abbas’s clique attempt to shape the legal framework of the Palestinian Authority for its own benefits, fearing that the old, ill, Palestinian President would pass away in the near future, leaving a huge vacuum behind, particularly with regards to who might be his successor, amongst all of the rivalling senior figures of the regime.
Abstract
Since 2007, the overall situation in Palestine has been in constant decline on almost all levels: the rule of law, economy, political stability, human rights, and social security. The main reason for this decline is the vicious continuance of the state of emergency following the parliament’s suspension in 2007 and its dissolution by the Supreme Constitutional Court in December 2018. President Abbas (Abu Mazen) is still maliciously exploiting the state of emergency to maintain his grip on power and preserve his clique cohesion. This was noted in two significant events that have taken place in the last year: the assassination of the political and human rights activist Nizar Banat, and the postponement of the parliamentary and presidential elections.