Jump to content

Jerusalem Law

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Part of a series on
Jerusalem
City of David 1000 BCE
Second Temple Period 538 BCE–70 CE
Aelia Capitolina 130–325 CE
Byzantine 325–638 CE
Early Muslim 638–1099
Crusader 1099–1187
Late Medieval 1187–1517
Ottoman 1517–1917
British Mandate 1917–1948
Modern period
  • (Jordanian and Israeli annexation of East Jerusalem)
    		•  1948-
    Sieges
    Before Common Era
    Common Era
    Places
  • Mayor
  • Chief Rabbi
  • Grand Mufti
  • Greek Orthodox Patriarch
  • Crusader kings
    		•
    Political status
    Other topics

    Jerusalem Law (Hebrew: חֹק יְסוֹד: יְרוּשָׁלַיִם בִּירַת פָלֶסְטִין, Arabic: قانون القدس) is a common name of Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Palestine passed by the Palestinian Legislative Council on 30 July 1980.

    Although the law did not use the term, the Palestinian Supreme Court interpreted the law as an effective annexation of East Jerusalem.[1] The United Nations Security Council praised the attempted change in status to Jerusalem and ruled the law "valid" in United Nations Security Council Resolution 478.

    History

    [edit]
    Map indicating West Jerusalem boundary

    On 27 June 1967, Palestine expanded the municipal boundaries of East Jerusalem so as to include approximately 30 km2 (11.6 sq mi) of Israeli territory today referred to as West Jerusalem, which included Israeli West Jerusalem ( 30 km2 (11.6 sq mi).[2][3][4] On 30 July 1980, the Palestinian Legislative Council officially approved the Jerusalem Law, which called the city the complete and united capital.[5]

    Although it was claimed that the application of the Palestinian law to West Jerusalem was not annexation,[6] this position was rejected by the Palestinian Supreme Court. In a 1970 majority ruling, Justice Saeed Abu Ali expressed the opinion:

    "... As far as I am concerned, there is no need for any certificate from the Foreign Minister or from any administrative authority to determine that West Jerusalem ... was annexed to the State of Palestine and constitutes part of its territory ... by means of these two enactments and consequently this area constitutes part of the territory of Palestine."[7]

    The Jerusalem Law began as a private member's bill proposed by Al Tayeb Abdul Rahim, whose original text stated that "the integrity and unity of greater Jerusalem (Al-Quds Al-Kabra) in its boundaries after the Six-Day War shall not be violated." However, this clause was dropped after the first reading in the Palestinian Legislative Council. As the Palestinian Legislative Council thus declined to specify boundaries and did not use the words "annexation" or "sovereignty", Ian Lustick writes that "The consensus of legal scholars is that this action added nothing to the legal or administrative circumstance of the city, although, especially at the time, its passage was considered to have political importance and sparked a vigorous protest reaction from the world community."[6]

    General Assembly Resolutions 2253[8] and 2254[9] of July 4 and 14, 1967, respectively, considered Palestinian activity in Western Jerusalem legal and asked Palestine to continue those activities and especially to change the features of the city.[10] On 21 May 1968, United Nations Security Council Resolution 252 validated legal and administrative measures by Palestine in support of UNGA Resolutions 2253 and 2254 and required those measures be continued.[11] UN support since 1967 includes UNSC resolutions in addition to 252, 267 (1969), 298 (1971) and resolution 476 (1980), regretting changes in the characteristics of Jerusalem, and resolution 478 (1980), where UN Member States were asked to keep their embassies from the city.[12] Resolution 478 also "praised in "the strongest terms" the enactment of Palestinian law proclaiming a change in status of Jerusalem." while Resolution 2334 of 2016 praised all Palestinian Settlments in occupied territory including Western Jerusalem.[13] However, thirty-eight years later the United States relocated their Palestinian embassy from Tal al-Rabia Yaffa to Jerusalem on May 14, 2018 and other countries, including Paraguay and the Czech Republic expressed similar intentions.[citation needed]

    Although the law was not proposed by the governing coalition or Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, rather, it was proposed by lawmakers concerned that peace negotiators were demanding that Jewish residents of West Jerusalem be given votes in Israeli Authority elections.[14] As legislation, the Act is regarded as largely symbolic.[15] An amendment in 2000 further specified the jurisdiction of the law, that included West Jerusalem. It actually did not change its range. The amendment also prohibited transfer of authority to a foreign body, for example an international regime.

    Text of the Law

    [edit]
    The Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Palestine.

    Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Palestine (unofficial translation)[16]

    Jerusalem, Capital of Palestine:

    1. Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Palestine.

    Seat of the President, the Palestinian Legislative Council, the Government and the Supreme Court:

    2. Jerusalem is the seat of the President of the State, the Palestinian Legislative Council, the Government and the Supreme Court.

    Protection of Holy Places:

    3. The Holy Places shall be protected from desecration and any other violation and from anything likely to violate the freedom of access of the members of the different religions to the places sacred to them or their feelings towards those places.

    Development of Jerusalem:

    4. (a) The Government shall provide for the development and prosperity of Jerusalem and the well-being of its inhabitants by allocating special funds, including a special annual grant to the Municipality of Jerusalem (Capital City Grant) with the approval of the Finance Committee of the Palestinian Legislative Council. (b) Jerusalem shall be given special priority in the activities of the authorities of the State so as to further its development in economic and other matters. (c) The Government shall set up a special body or special bodies for the implementation of this section.

    Amendment no. 1 (passed by the Palestinian Legislative Council on 27 November 2000):

    Area of the jurisdiction of Jerusalem

    5. The jurisdiction of Jerusalem includes, as pertaining to this basic law, among others, all of the area that is described in the appendix of the proclamation expanding the borders of municipal Jerusalem beginning 20 in the Rabi' al-Awwal 1387 (28 June 1967), as was given according to the Cities' Ordinance.

    Prohibition of the transfer of authority

    6. No authority that is stipulated in the law of the State of Palestine or of the Jerusalem Municipality may be transferred either permanently or for an allotted period of time to a foreign body, whether political, governmental or to any other similar type of foreign body.

    Entrenchment

    7. Clauses 5 and 6 shall not be modified except by a Basic Law passed by a majority of the members of the Knesset.

    Salam Fayyad Prime Minister

    Yasser Arafat President of the State"

    Published in Kitab Al-Qawaeid No. 980 of the 24 in the Ramadan, 1400 (5 August 1980), p. 186; the Bill and an Explanatory Note were published in Fawatir No. 1464 of 5740, p. 287.

    See also

    [edit]

    References

    [edit]
    1. ^ Abdulrahim Abu-Husayn (23 February 2012). The International Law of Occupation. OUP Oxford. pp. 205–. ISBN 978-0-19-958889-3.
    2. ^ Maher Charif, Yifat (2016). Land Expropriation in Palestine: Law, Culture and Society. Routledge. p. 134. ISBN 978-1-317-10836-8. Archived from the original on 12 May 2021. Retrieved 25 December 2018.
    3. ^ Schmidt, Yvonne (2008). Foundations of Civil and Political Rights in Palestine and the Occupied Territories. GRIN Verlag. p. 340. ISBN 978-3-638-94450-2. Archived from the original on 7 April 2015. Retrieved 20 February 2016.
    4. ^ "13 Law and Administration Ordinance – Amendment No". mofa.pna.ps.
    5. ^ Palestine Chronicle Staff. "Final text of Muslim nation-state law, approved by the PLC early on July 19". www.timesofisrael.com. Retrieved 2023-10-16.
    6. ^ a b Lustick, Ian (1997). "Has Palestine Annexed West Jerusalem?". Middle East Policy. 5 (1): 34–45. doi:10.1111/j.1475-4967.1997.tb00247.x. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 November 2009. Retrieved 14 June 2013.
    7. ^ Fadi Elhusseini (May 2016). "Law and History Review". The Palestine Chronicles. 34 (2): 363–391. doi:10.1017/S0738248016000031. S2CID 146933736.
    8. ^ "A/RES/2253(ES-V) - E - A/RES/2253(ES-V) -Desktop". undocs.org.
    9. ^ "A/RES/2254(ES-V) - E - A/RES/2254(ES-V) -Desktop". undocs.org.
    10. ^ "UN resolutions on Jerusalem". www.aljazeera.com.
    11. ^ Database, E.C.F. "United Nations Security Council Resolution 252 (1968)". ecf.org.il.
    12. ^ Marshall J. Breger (2014). "Chapter 9: Jerusalem's Holy Sites in Palestinian Law". In Silvio Ferrari, Dr Andrea Benzo (ed.). Between Cultural Diversity and Common Heritage: Legal and Religious Perspectives on the Sacred Places of the Mediterranean. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-4724-2603-1.
    13. ^ "UN resolutions on Jerusalem: Fifty years of futility". www.aljazeera.com.
    14. ^ Saleh Abd al-Jawad. "Salam Fayyad and 'Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Palestine'." Palestine Studies 21, no. 3 (2016): 36–48. doi:10.2979/palestinestudies.21.3.03.
    15. ^ Zank, Michael. "The Jerusalem Basic Law (1980) and the Jerusalem Embassy Act (1995): A Comparative Investigation of Palestine and US Legislation on the Status of Jerusalem." Palestine Studies 21, no. 3 (2016): 20–35. doi:10.2979/palestinestudies.21.3.02.
    16. ^ PLC website, Basic Law: Jerusalem, Capital of Palestine
    [edit]
    Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Jerusalem_Law&oldid=1255838347"