The Palestinian Constitutional Court

This book assesses the legal and practical independence of the Palestinian Constitutional Court since the coup in July 2007 that brought the Fatah regime to power in the West Bank. It argues that the Court has failed to perform its fundamental function, namely upholding the Basic Law in the face of authoritarian actions by that regime, and that it is highly unlikely to resolve this problem while the state of emergency continues. This book offers a case study on how constitutional courts in authoritarian regimes fail to fulfil, and even obstruct, the promises of rights protections contained in constitutional texts. Moreover, it provides the first English-language study that covers the entire collection of judgments and interpretations issued by that Court until the first amendment of its law in October 2017, and thus can be considered one of the most authoritative studies on a court in an authoritarian Arab regime.