Lebanese Minister of Justice: International judicial cooperation does not constitute an infringement of sovereignty

Today, Wednesday, Minister of Justice in the Lebanese caretaker government, Henry Khoury, affirmed that international judicial cooperation does not constitute an infringement of Lebanese judicial sovereignty if it is carried out in accordance with the legal rules in force in Lebanon.

Minister Khoury said, in a press conference today, that "Lebanon has received requests for judicial cooperation from Germany, Luxembourg, France and Switzerland on suspicion of financial crimes, and it has answered some of them, and France, Germany and Switzerland have handed over many of the required evidence, interrogation records and witness statements that took place during the preliminary investigations before the prosecution." discriminatory year until its conclusion in 2022.

He added, "The Ministry of Justice has referred requests for judicial assistance to the Public Prosecution Court of Cassation, which is responsible for determining the appropriate judicial authority to implement it in accordance with the legal rules in force in Lebanon, and it certainly does not include authorizing the implementation of any foreign judicial procedure by foreign judges on Lebanese soil."

And he believed that "every international judicial cooperation that takes place in accordance with these rules that I referred to cannot constitute an infringement on the Lebanese judicial sovereignty, and every departure from these rules, if it occurs, will certainly be rejected by the competent judicial references and inevitably by the Ministry of Justice within its administrative and constitutional powers."

Minister Khoury continued, "As for the issue of the presence of foreign judges and investigators for the procedures for implementing requests for judicial assistance by the Lebanese judiciary, it is left to the Lebanese judge's discretion in accordance with the Lebanese Code of Criminal Procedure."

And European judicial delegations from France, Germany and Luxembourg began to arrive in Lebanon to listen to a number of Lebanese personalities, in the context of the ongoing European investigations into crimes committed by suspected acts that occurred in Lebanese banks.

Some considered that this step is to achieve justice, while others described it as an attack on the Lebanese judicial sovereignty over Lebanese territory.

Follow our latest local and sports news and the latest political and economic developments via Google news