The Jerusalem Post raised the issue of handling Palestinian minors who have been convicted of their crimes in Israel.
The concern has been largely brought about by the decision of the President of the Israel Defense Forces West Bank Appellate Court, Colonel Netanel Benishu, who has ordered the IDF West Bank Prosecutor to allow Palestinian minors who have been accused of crimes to be screened by a social worker. The decision, which was handed down last week, gained criticism and was seen as the court's way of rebuking the prosecution, who had been unwilling to issue rehabilitation for the minors who have committed wrongdoing.
In recent years, JPost said that the IDF has added legal provisions that allow the entitlement of convicted Palestinian minors to meet with social workers for further rehabilitation and evaluation to ensure that the sentencing handed out to such minors were apt considering their aspects of their character, home environment and other factors. However, the need to have such evaluation with social workers pre-trial arose, and that it would be unfair considering that Israel allows evaluation and rehabilitation of Israeli minors pre-trial and post-trial.
On the other hand, the Middle Eastern paper said that the reason for not allowing Palestinian minors to be evaluated pre-trial was that house arrests rarely exist in the accused underage children.
The paper wrote, "in the West Bank, the police and security forces have extremely limited movement and access, making enforcing house arrest an impossibility. Also, because of fundamental ideological differences, the IDF does not feel that it can count on parents or other Palestinians to keep minors under house arrest as it can Israeli civilians, who themselves are more easily subject to prosecution for failing their duty."
JPost believes that the IDF West Bank Appellate Court decision will unlikely have an impact in the usual legal proceedings of Palestinian minors on trial for various wrongdoing.
