Summary
Israel’s Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, 5762-2002, dated 4 March 2002, under which the Chief of General Staff may order the incarceration of an unlawful combatant — a person who participated directly or indirectly in hostile acts against the State of Israel, or is a member of a force perpetrating such acts, where the Third Geneva Convention’s prisoner-of-war conditions do not apply to him — on reasonable cause to believe his release will harm State security, with District Court review within fourteen days and every six months, and no maximum period stated in the text (Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, 5762-2002 (2002), lines 49-85).
Details
- Order and submissions (section 3, lines 63-67): the order may be granted in the person’s absence and must include the grounds, without prejudicing State security requirements; the prisoner may put submissions before an officer of at least lieutenant-colonel’s rank, recorded and brought before the Chief of General Staff, who shall quash the order if the section 3(a) conditions have not been fulfilled. The paragraph carrying the submissions procedure is numbered “3.” again in the text, as printed.
- Review and appeal (section 5, lines 75-85): District Court within fourteen days, failing which the prisoner shall be released unless another detention ground exists; review once every six months, quashing where release will not harm State security or special grounds justify release; appeal within thirty days to a single Supreme Court judge; departure from the laws of evidence is permissible, including admission or non-disclosure of evidence in the prisoner’s and his representative’s absence; hearings are in camera unless the court provides otherwise.
- Presumption and proof (sections 7-8, lines 97-101): membership of, or participation in the hostile acts of, a force perpetrating hostile acts deems the prisoner’s release harmful to State security as long as the force’s hostile acts have not ceased, unless proved otherwise; a Minister of Defense certificate that a force is perpetrating hostile acts, or that they have ceased or not yet ceased, serves as proof in any legal proceedings, unless proved otherwise.
- Lawyer, conditions, parallel proceedings (sections 6, 9-10, lines 89-113): a lawyer meeting at the earliest date compatible with State security requirements and no later than seven days before the first court appearance, with representation liable to be confined by ministerial order to unrestrictedly authorised military-court defence counsel; criminal proceedings may be initiated in parallel and do not bar an order; the prisoner shall be held under proper conditions which shall not impair his health or dignity, under regulations of the Minister of Defense, the 1981 administrative-detention internment-conditions regulations applying until then (section 12(b), line 123).
Where sources disagree
- Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope says this Law, applied to Mahmoud Sarsak, offers a detained person even less protection than Administrative Detention (PDF p.128). The primary text states the protections and the departures recorded above and makes no comparison; both are kept, with the comparison attributed to Falk.
Related pages
Incarceration of Unlawful Combatants Law, 5762-2002 (2002), Administrative Detention, Israel Defense Forces, Mahmoud Sarsak, Knesset