The concept of selective justice in this region is relatively short-lived, estimated at less than half a century, It began with the Taif Agreement of 1975 concerning Lebanon, which prompted other Middle Eastern countries to emulate Taif, All have relatively failed to produce a rights-based democratic culture, and have also failed to build civil society institutions, despite the existence of role models in this regard, such as the Eastern European countries, which turned their backs on dictatorial communist internationalism and transformed into democracies, In contrast, the Middle East region is still dominated by isolation, and human rights are still despised, despite generally being the most important standard for the progress of any society, The relationship between the ruler and the people remains tense, and governance is still exclusive to the ruler until death in many cases, Chaos still prevails, and increasing backwardness is the order of the day—not relative backwardness, but absolute backwardness! The judiciary remains deteriorating, subservient, and does not know independence, justice, or the difference between justice and fairness.
There are differences between justice and fairness , In short, justice is a legal form, while fairness is a human essence of equity, and all of this is largely based on the concept of equality, Justice does not differentiate between a mother who steals to feed her hungry children and a thief who steals driven by greed,Fairness distinguishes between the thief and the mother,The mother who steals to feed her hungry children is rewarded by justice and punished by fairness, i.e., the law or Sharia, which orders the cutting off of the thief’s hand, Aristotle addressed this issue, emphasizing the principle of equality among all, The poor, hungry child should be fed like the child of a rich family, The law or Sharia that achieves justice does not achieve fairness, which does not cut off the hand that stole.
Justice has different forms, such as social, economic, or political justice, etc. Then there is transitional justice, which is a newly born concept in the social and legal sciences, Transitional justice is primarily concerned with the problems of societies whose rights have been violated by authoritarianism, dictatorship, corruption, and a lack of democratic practices.
The concept of transitional justice suffers from an inherent contradiction between the meanings of its first part and the meanings of its second part, The meaning of “transitional” is incompatible with the concept of “justice,” because the concept of justice is permanent in its human and social dimension, and it is not permissible in the first place to be phased, It is difficult to define in terms of time, Transitional justice is the set of procedures in the stage of democratic transition, whose goal is to reveal the truth regarding practices of tampering with human rights, and then to hold accountable, without revenge, those who have abused human rights, The intention of all this is to be able to turn the page on the past and reconcile with history, and then move to a new stage or era characterized by democracy, There are many definitions of transitional justice, and there is a definition specific to the United Nations. We did not find any fundamental differences between all of these definitions.
Some believe that transitional justice is time-bound, meaning it is not open-ended, but rather a phased process aimed at overcoming vindictiveness, revenge, and social hostility, and overcoming the accumulation of negatives with the intention of starting anew with a new spirit of cooperation and solidarity, far removed from the culture of revenge, resentment, and Bedouin vengeance and violence, The Bedouin concept of rights is not qualified to practice transitional justice, What is important in transitional justice is not primarily retribution, but rather social reconstruction in a way that allows for a new and continuous political, rights-based, democratic, and humane beginning, meaning it is not a phased transition, Thus, the term “transitional justice” is contradictory in itself, The application of justice has succeeded in many countries, such as Greece after the military coups, Chile regarding Pinochet, and many countries in South America, but it has failed in Arab entities.
Transitional justice has gone through several phases, The first phase was international in nature, for example, in the trials of World War II war criminals in Nuremberg and Tokyo, The application of transitional justice was accompanied by something more important than the trial of war criminals, and the most important thing was democracy, for example, in Germany, Japan, Greece, and others, which led to the continuous progress of those societies and their transformation into global role models regarding the integrity of governance and its sustainable democracy.
The second phase was the Cold War era, Here, “transitional” justice suffered a certain stagnation, manifested in the disregard for numerous human rights crimes and violations, The justification was the conflict between the two blocs, a conflict that essentially ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, This phase was not characterized by the prosecution of those who abused human rights, nor was it accompanied by a departure from the totalitarian and dictatorial model of governance, Here, one could say that the mountain brought forth a mouse, and Putin is the quintessential representative of this development, Putinism initiated and practiced for many years the alternation of the presidency and the prime ministership between Putin and Medvedev, until Putin consolidated his hold on the Russian presidency for life, thus implementing what Moncef Marzouki called the concept of “monarchy,” characterized by a combination of republicanism and monarchy,Putinism blatantly violated human rights and then enacted laws from the Duma, or the puppet parliament, to legitimize this violation! There is no opposition in Russia, because the opponent is killed according to Putin’s law, which aligns with Russian law, , which denies Putin’s responsibility for the killing.
The third phase of “transitional” justice was characterized by the beginning of the 1990s, and the beginning was in Yugoslavia,Here, several principles and practices were born, including the unauthorized military intervention by the Security Council, and then the violation of the internal immunity of the state, since there is nothing in the United Nations Charter that allows the international community to intervene in the internal affairs of a member state of the United Nations without authorization, that is, without issuing a legal case that imposes Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter, Then the matter was repeated in Rwanda and in Iraq, Here we want to point out that most of the violations of the immunity of states occurred during the period of Boutros Boutros-Ghali as Secretary-General of the United Nations, Perhaps that was just a coincidence!
Transitional justice has not penetrated the borders of many Arab countries, nor has it fully taken shape in any of them, The partial transitional justice achieved by the Taif Agreement in Lebanon is crumbling under the weight of the very flaw that legitimized this patchwork, Algeria has not transitioned to democracy after the war that erupted there after 1992, The situation in Iraq has only worsened,The situation in Sudan is catastrophic, and the rest of the Arab countries suffer from the same problems, There has been no reconciliation, no trials for those who violated human rights, and no democratic project has been established, unlike Greece after the military coups, Chile after Pinochet, and the countries that emerged from the remnants of the former Yugoslavia.
Justice is a human concept that is not static and constantly evolving, and it differs from the concept of justice in law or Sharia, especially Sharia, which is considered static, while laws evolve because they are not sacred.
The concept of selective justice in this region is relatively short-lived, estimated at less than half a century, It began with the Taif Agreement of 1975 concerning Lebanon, which prompted other Middle Eastern countries to emulate Taif, All have relatively failed to produce a rights-based democratic culture, and have also failed to build civil society institutions, despite the existence of role models in this regard, such as the Eastern European countries, which turned their backs on dictatorial communist internationalism and transformed into democracies, In contrast, the Middle East region is still dominated by isolation, and human rights are still despised, despite generally being the most important standard for the progress of any society, The relationship between the ruler and the people remains tense, and governance is still exclusive to the ruler until death in many cases, Chaos still prevails, and increasing backwardness is the order of the day—not relative backwardness, but absolute backwardness! The judiciary remains deteriorating, subservient, and does not know independence, justice, or the difference between justice and fairness.