ID: HR19-986
Presenting author: Sandy Mteirek
Sandy Mteirek
The Lebanese Drug Law established “Right to Treatment as an Alternative to Prosecution” in 1998 an option that can be requested at any time during arrest, detention and prosecution. This was partially implemented with the granting of the right to treatment by a judge, in a courtroom only. Denying this right to thousands of people, mostly young, arrested for drug use every year, has overburdened the already slow judicial system, delayed justice and most significantly, created a schism in judiciary and law enforcement practices. In this abstract, we will explore how a circular by Lebanon’s State Public Prosecutor moved the country’s national response a step closer to decriminalization.
In 2018, Skoun surveyed judges and public prosecutors to explore their understanding of the law. Besides the lack of knowledge on the law mechanisms, there was no will, to enforce the law at the policing level signifying a reluctance to let go of a criminalizing approach to drug consumers. This is reflected in the fact that not a single case was referred to treatment directly from police stations.
In the same year, and while the government is discussing a law to legalize cannabis cultivation for exportation, Skoun successfully lobbied the State Public Prosecutor to issue a judicial circular forcing public prosecutors and judicial police to implement the law and refer individuals to treatment at the arrest level. The Circular further instructs that cases of drug use should no longer be detained.
In practice, this potentially means that law enforcement can no longer detain and undertake long investigations, often leading to serious human rights violations making it harder to use drug users as trophies in drug control efforts, which are funneled through the criminal justice system. The circular thus forces the hand of government and injects the idea of decriminalization into the system.