Ruling on a Petition Submitted by Adalah and ACRI, Supreme Court Decides that Prison Service's Refusal to allow Lawyers to Visit Hunger-Striking Prisoners is Illegal

On 1 September 2004, the Supreme Court of Israel, for the first time, ruled that the right of prisoners and detainees to meet with their lawyers is guaranteed, including those taking part in a hunger strike. The Supreme Court also decided that cases of the Israel Prison Service (IPS) barring such meetings during the recent hunger strike undertaken by Palestinian political prisoners and detainees were illegal, at the admission of the state's own representative.

The decision followed the filing of a joint petition by Adalah and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) on 29 August 2004, in the name of seven lawyers who had been refused access to hunger-striking prisoners and detainees, and in the name of seven other human rights organizations. Adalah attorney Orna Kohn and ACRI attorney Sonia Bulus submitted the petition.

Since the prisoners and detainees announced the start of their hunger strike on 15 August 2004, in protest against the deplorable conditions of confinement in Israeli prisons and detention centers, the IPS began preventing attorneys from visiting them. In some cases, attorneys were even denied access to non-striking prisoners. On several occasions the IPS acknowledged, verbally and in writing, that the reason for refusing attorneys' permission to visit prisoners and detainees was the hunger strike.

The petitioners contended that the prevention of meetings between attorneys and hunger-striking prisoners and detainees has no legal basis, and in fact contradicts existing laws and is tantamount to illegal punishment. They added that obstructing prisoners' meetings with their attorneys violates the prisoners' basic right to legal counsel, their constitutional rights to life, bodily integrity and dignity, in addition to their right to access to justice. The petitioners also argued that preventing prisoner-attorney meetings deprives attorneys of their ability to defend their clients and to fulfill their professional duty, and impinges upon their freedom to practice their profession.

The petitioners also emphasized that, since the IPS prevents many individuals classified as security prisoners from receiving visits from their families, as well as Members of Knesset (Israeli parliament), the hunger-striking prisoners and detainees were completely isolated from the outside world, which increased the gravity of the situation. The petitioners stressed that, even if the IPS considered the hunger strike to be a breach of prison regulations, it did not have the authority to punish the participating prisoners and detainees by denying them access to their lawyers.

H.C. 7867/04, Fida Kawaer, et. al. v. Israel Prison Service