Early Representation of the Suspect Before Palestinian Judicial Police Officers

Abstract

Early representation, in its content, means the presence of a lawyer with a suspect from the first moment that law enforcement agencies, represented by judicial police officers, begin their investigation. The right to seek assistance from a lawyer is a constitutional right for anyone who is under suspicion or accusation. This study examines the early representation of suspects before Palestinian judicial officers. It emphasises the importance of a lawyer’s presence with a suspect during the evidence-gathering or preliminary investigation stage. The research also explores jurisprudential opinions on a suspect’s right to seek the assistance of a lawyer and the efforts made in Palestinian legislation to establish this right. To achieve these objectives, the study employs an analytical and inductive approach to extrapolate legal texts and analyse jurisprudential opinions, focusing on the points of disagreement that arise regarding the suspect’s right to seek the assistance of a lawyer. In light of this, the study concluded that the stage of collecting inferences, or the preliminary investigation, is one of the most important and dangerous stages of the criminal case upon which the preliminary and final investigations are based. A suspect is a person against whom there is suspicion of committing a specific crime, for whom there is not enough evidence for conviction, and at the same time, their innocence has not yet been proven. It also revealed that the Palestinian Criminal Procedure Code did not authorise or approve the suspect’s lawyer to attend the collection stage. Inferences or the preliminary investigation are conducted before the judicial officer, while this right is regulated for the accused during the preliminary and final investigation stages. The study recommended that the Palestinian legislator should adopt a procedural system that stipulates the right of the suspect to seek the assistance of a lawyer during the evidence-gathering or preliminary investigation stage, as is the case in the preliminary investigation stage.