Palestinian Law

Palestinian law is the law administered by the Palestinian National Authority within the territory pursuant to the Oslo Accords. It has an unusually unsettled status, as of 2014, due to the complex legal history of the area, the overlapping jurisdictions, and the lawlessness and high crime rate in those areas. Palestinian law includes many of the legal regimes and precepts used in Palestinian ruled territory and administered by the Palestinian Authority (West Bank areas A and B) and Hamas (Gaza Strip), which is not an independent nation-state.

The scope of this article is to explain the legal history, context and development of law, the current fields of study of law in Palestinian ruled territory, as well as the state of lawlessness in those territories. It is also to discuss the domestic and international positions on which set of laws are controlling in Palestinian ruled territory today.

Due to the changing usages of the terms "Palestine" and "Palestinian" throughout history, the term may also be associated with regimes that are not associated with the Palestinian law of today. Examples include the discussion (in a reference work dating from 1906) of the Talmudic interpretation of laws from Palestine before 70 C.E., also known as Halakha: "Those of the laws of Palestine that were extended after the Exile were originally enacted for the purpose of protecting the judicial administration and economic interests of Palestine, and with a view to encourage settlement there." Such references to ancient Palestinian law do not apply to the Palestinian legal situation since at least 1948.

Essentially, says one legal scholar, "the legal system in 'Palestine' consists of layer upon layer of law that almost all remain in effect." The major issue is the:

question of whether the emerging state of Palestine will be capable of overseeing a system of rule of law. This debate is important not only in the political arena but in the legal arena as well, since a viable state must have a legal system that is functional and reliable. Despite the historically deteriorated condition of the Gazan and West Bank legal systems under occupation, the Palestinians recently have sought to seize the opportunity to determine the fate of their own legal heritage. To determine how this may be possible, we must look at what laws currently exist in the Palestinian territories. The law applied in different parts of the West Bank and Gaza strip is a combination of the various laws imposed on said areas throughout this century. Instead of each new law superseding the previous law, almost all of these laws remain in effect in the territories. Therefore, one would have to research multiple legal systems and codes to determine the law in one area. This is quite a confusing situation. The Palestinian legal system can be compared to a tossed salad, with layers of different laws and systems all mixed up into a confused mess. This situation in the Palestinian Territories is perhaps unprecedented in modern history.

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