Palestinian flags are strung across an alley in the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila in Beirut. (Credit: Anwar Amro/AFP)
BEIRUT — Syndicates representing pharmacists and physicians pushed back Thursday against a decision by the Labor Minister to allow Palestinians to work in professions requiring syndicate membership.
Here is what we know:
• The decision announced Wednesday by Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram allows “Palestinians born in Lebanese territories and officially registered with the Ministry of Interior” to work in professions requiring syndicate membership, from which they had previously been barred. However, for Palestinians to actually enter the professions in some cases requires either legal changes or changes to the syndicates’ bylaws in order for non-Lebanese workers to be allowed in.
• Head of the Pharmacists Syndicate Joe Salloum in a statement called on “the Minister of Labor to urgently issue an explanatory annex to his decision No. 96/1” and to “clearly and explicitly limit the practice to Lebanese pharmacists for legal and technical reasons.”
• In stating his objection, Salloum cited the principle of reciprocity, noting that Article 5 of Law No. 367 issued on Aug. 1, 1994, stipulates that a non-Lebanese pharmacists “must come from an Arab country that treats Lebanese pharmacists reciprocally in accordance with an agreement between the two countries,” adding that there is no agreement signed between the Lebanese state and the Palestinian state in that regard. The borders of the Palestinian territories are controlled by Israeli security forces, and Lebanese citizens are prohibited from entering Israel, making such an agreement effectively impossible to implement.
• “On the other hand, the number of unemployed Lebanese pharmacists is increasing year after year,” Salloum added.
• With a similar stance, Order of Physicians head Charaf Abou Charaf wrote in a statement sent to L’Orient Today that he was surprised by the decision issued from the Labor Minister, noting that Article 5 of the law regulating the practice of medicine for a non-Lebanese doctor from among Arab countries states that “the doctor should meet conditions and qualifications required and has to belong to a country where the Lebanese doctor is allowed to practice his or her profession.”
• He continued that Article 3 of the law states that no doctor has the right to practice medicine on the Lebanese territory until he or she affiliates to a union. Adding “that any amendment to the conditions for practicing the medical profession requires legal change, and not a ministerial decision that bypasses the law.”
• Regarding the principle of reciprocity, Karim Nammour, a lawyer and member of the Legal Agenda, noted that since Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are effectively stateless, as they are banned from returning to their country of origin, it is effectively impossible for them to meet the principle of reciprocity, and that as a general principle of law “a condition that is impossible should be null and void.”
• Earlier today, Free Patriotic Movement leader Gebran Bassil denounced Bayram’s decision, and in a similar reaction the Kataeb party released a statement noting that the decision is an “attack on the right of the Lebanese,” adding that “this step will require institutions and employers to register [Palestinain] employees for social security, which will accumulate unbearable burdens that will lead to bankruptcy.”
• The Progressive Socialist Party, on the other hand, rejected "the attacks on the decision of the Labor Minister Mustafa Bayram, which allows Palestinian refugees to work in some professions," noting that “in parallel with the difficult conditions experienced by the Lebanese citizen...we look with brotherhood and solidarity to the reality of the Palestinian refugees.”