AMMAN — The Lower House on Tuesday decided to seek the opinion of its Legal Committee over the Senate’s changes to the State Security Court (SSC) Law’s draft amendments.
MPs endorsed the amendments last month, excluding “resistance actions” against Israel from SSC’s jurisdiction, following a proposal to do so by Deputy Tareq Khoury (Zarqa, 1st District).
However, earlier this month, senators decided to remove the provision approved by MPs on “resistance actions” against Israel.
Senate President Abdur-Ra’uf S. Rawabdeh said the SSC Law is not the right legislation to include such a provision, arguing that it should be included under an anti-terrorism law.
The Upper House recommended that the government submit a draft anti-terrorism law to specify the crimes that fall under the category of terrorism.
During Tuesday’s Lower House session, deputies were divided over the Senate’s decision, deciding to look into it after the Legal Committee issues its recommendations.
The amended SSC Law limits the jurisdiction of the court to five crimes specified in the Constitution: treason, espionage, terrorism, drugs and money counterfeiting.
In November last year, the Lower House gave the bill urgency status and started deliberations over it immediately.
His Majesty King Abdullah had directed the government to change the law governing the SSC to ensure that trials are in conformity with the Constitution.
Under Article 101 of the Constitution: “No civilian may be tried in a criminal case where all its judges are not civilian, the exception to that are the crimes of treason, espionage, terrorism, the crimes of drugs and currency forgery.”
The government’s changes to the SSC Law ensure that civilians indicted on state security charges, other than those listed in the said constitutional article, are tried before a court whose judges are all civilians and one that is affiliated with the Judicial Council rather than the SSC.
