BEIRUT: A Cabinet meeting was convened on Saturday to address judicial actions against seven banks in Lebanon.
The meeting conducted a review of the conflict between banks and the judiciary. The extraordinary session was held under the title “The higher interest of the state.”
The Cabinet concluded with Mikati affirming that the council of ministers had agreed that the law would take its course based on the principle of cooperation between the authorities without any discrimination or discretion.
It also agreed that judicial matters would be resolved according to laws by the staff of the judicial authority.
A ministerial source who took part in the session told Arab News that the ministers saw that it was not allowed for judges to use depositors’ money to achieve a certain populism.
The judge should not be a populist and tweet on Twitter, some ministers reportedly felt.
BACKGROUND
The banking association said the strike was a warning against what it called ‘the arbitrariness of some judicial decisions’ – a reference to orders that have frozen the assets of seven banks since March 14 and banned six of their executives from travel.
“The banks are indeed mistaken and there is indeed a major crisis, but it should be addressed in a balanced and non-random manner,” they suggested.
In response to what it described as a “judicial attack on banks,” the Association of Banks has called for the issuance of the capital control law as soon as possible.
In addition to the strike, the association warned that it might “take other steps that may be necessary to preserve the national economy and the supreme Lebanese interest.”
The decision on a set of lawsuits filed by activist groups against some major banks in Lebanon to recover depositors’ money coincided with investigations on charges against the central bank governor on suspicion of illegal enrichment and money laundering.
The judicial procedures resulted in the execution of the seizure of Fransabank’s assets, shares, and real estate and of the Creditbank and the branches of Blom Bank in Tripoli.
The Association of Depositors indicated its intention “to file more executive lawsuits against banks in the coming days.”
In a related development, the brother of Central Bak Gov. Raja Salameh, was arrested by the appeal public prosecutor in Mount Lebanon, Ghada Aoun, after he appeared before her as a witness.
Salameh’s attorney, Marwan Issa El-Khoury, said the allegations of “illicit enrichment and money laundering” were unfounded and the case was “media speculation without any evidence.”
The governor of the central bank had refrained from coming to Judge Aoun’s office more than a week ago as a witness, as he had filed a lawsuit to respond to Judge Aoun about the case in which he was investigated.
Aoun has also issued a travel ban against Salameh.
She said that the possibility of the political authority putting pressure on the judiciary was an “unacceptable attack on judges who perform their professional duty, if some people did not like this or that prosecution.”
Judge Aoun, who is affiliated with the president, in a tweet called on Lebanon’s judges to arm themselves with “the truth and the legal text. The hope is in you to save the country from injustice, bullying the weak and diverting influence.”
One of the ways out of the current crisis is to refer the confrontation between depositors and banks to the Court of Appeal.
The court may decide on Monday to implement the decision to break the seizure of safes and maintain the seizure of the value of the claimant’s deposit.
Also on Saturday, the leader of the Lebanese Forces party, Samir Geagea, said that “some bank owners and their administrators bear part of the responsibility for what happened to depositors’ deposits, and therefore they should be prosecuted legally.”
But he added: “What is happening now with regard to the issue of banks is a kind of farce and misleading public opinion.”
Geagea expressed his fear that “these authoritarian measures that use part of the judiciary as a tool for them, and are covered by law, will destroy the banking sector instead of reforming it.”
Geagea said that “the president, the current government, and the parliamentary majority are responsible for the harm that befalls Lebanese citizens as a result of all their personal maliciousness, continuous blackmail attempts or attempts to change some officials to appoint the most evil crooks in their place.”
Lebanese Cabinet urges judiciary not to fall for populism as banks plan strike
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