On 8 February 2009, Adalah sent a letter to Minister of Justice Daniel Friedmann demanding that he cancel Article 3 of the Court Procedures directives, which allows district courts to hear petitions filed by prisoners inside prisoners rather than in public courtrooms outside the prison walls.
In the letter, Adalah Attorney Abeer Baker argued that district courts now hold the vast majority of hearings on prisoners’ petitions within prison buildings, despite the fact that Israeli law clearly states that holding hearings outside the courts is to occur only in cases in which doing so increases the chances of justice to be realized or in order to increase the efficiency of the court’s work.
Adalah further contended that conducting court hearings inside prisons leads to the creation of a close relationship between the judges and prison authorities, which seriously undermines the principle of separation of powers and the impartiality of the judiciary, because prisoners’ petitions are brought against the prison authorities. This close relationship also impairs the principle of equality before the court: the court is supposed to be neutral and not biased towards any of the parties. This situation can have a negative effect on the decisions issued by the court.
In the letter, Adalah further argued that this practice violates the constitutional principle of open hearings, which mandates that trials be conducted in public. Yet, to be granted entry into prison buildings an individual has to coordinate in advance at least 24 hours prior to the time of the a hearing, and a large number of restrictions are imposed on the entry of former prisoners. In addition, the rooms in which the hearings are being conducted are small, a fact which precludes the entry of anyone other than those directly-involved in the proceedings and prevents a large audience from observing the hearings.
Open hearings allows for scrutiny of the courts’ conduct and as a guarantee of fair trials and equality before the courts. As Adalah argued, holding hearings inside prisons in practice subjects the court to the orders of the prison, making the court subordinate to one of the parties to the case, rather than vice versa. It undermines the trust held by prisoners in the impartiality of the court, and violates their right to approach the courts to obtain the rights to which they are entitled in prison.