In its statement, the Supreme Judicial Council said it has referred the Ghada Aoun matter to the Judicial Inspection Authority. (Credit: ANI)
BEIRUT — The Supreme Judicial Council, an administrative body that oversees Lebanon’s court system, called on Judge Ghada Aoun on Tuesday to abide by a judicial decision dismissing her from investigations into possible financial crimes and currency export breaches.
The council issued a statement to this effect hours after it heard testimony from Aoun, who has been in the spotlight since Thursday amid a legal standoff with Lebanon’s public prosecutor Judge Ghassan Oueidat.
Oueidat, who outranks Aoun, a Mount Lebanon public prosecutor, had on Thursday ordered her dismissal from financial prosecutions, stripping her of monthslong investigations she had been leading into Mecattaf Holding Group, Société Générale de Banque au Liban and Banque Du Liban Gov. Riad Salameh.
Aoun was investigating Mecattaf — a major foreign exchange business — and SGBL for allegedly withdrawing dollars from the market and shipping the funds abroad. At the same time, she charged Salameh with dereliction of duty and breach of trust in respect to his use of dollars that were allocated for subsidizing basic goods.
Subsequent to Oueidat’s dismissal order, Aoun raided Mecattaf’s offices in Awkar on two consecutive days, resulting in a protest yesterday in front of the Justice Palace in Beirut that pitted the judges’ respective supporters against each other.
On Tuesday, Aoun gave testimony to the Supreme Judicial Council for nearly 40 minutes. As she left, she was greeted with cheers from supporters of the Free Patriotic Movement, a political party to which she is perceived as being close.
According to local media, Aoun took the opportunity during her meeting with the council to submit complaints against several judges, including Oueidat, arguing that his decision to redistribute judicial tasks and withdraw specific cases from her was a violation of the code of criminal procedure and would hinder her investigations.
The quarrel between Oueidat, who is close to Prime Minister-designate Saad Hariri, and Aoun, who is perceived as a supporter of the president, holds a mirror to the political crisis that has engulfed Lebanon since the catastrophic Aug. 4 Beirut port explosion.
Hariri and President Michel Aoun have locked horns over government formation, resulting in the country being run by a caretaker cabinet for more than eight months.
“The council’s decision is an attempt to remove politics and personal disputes from the judiciary and put things into the appropriate legal framework,” Dr. Antoine Sfeir, a lawyer, professor and expert in constitutional law, told L’Orient Today.
In its statement, the Supreme Judicial Council also said it has referred the case to the Judicial Inspection Authority, which may take the decision to sanction Aoun, Sfeir said.
“The Judicial Inspection Authority has wide powers, ranging from merely blaming Aoun to impeaching her,” he said.