Press Review [Archives:2001/37/Press Review]
Though this week’s local newspapers have tackled a variety of themes in their editorials and articles, emphasis has been put on matters related to judicial reform, local councils, president Saleh’s latest interview to Al-Jazeera TV. channel and the conference against racism held in Durban, in South Africa and the U.S. role in hampering any mention of zionism as equal to racism.
Following are excerpts from articles published in some of the local newspapers for this week.
Saut Ash-Shoura
weekly
2 September 2001
Nassr Al-Shara’bi says in his article on structural reform in the judiciary system that the decision taken by the supreme judiciary council that sacked 20 judges from their posts and pensioned 108 others, has aroused questions on reforming the sids that carry out reform of the judiciary structure and putting an end to wrong practices.
It is to be noted that some measures taken by the supreme judiciary council regarding appointments, and transferring of judges in courts and prosecution have taken into account the re-arrangement of individuals situations at the expense of reforming the judicial system and development of its machinery. Some specialists and experts in this domain see that reaching at extensive judiciary reform should begin by straightening the practical course of the judiciary supreme council . As for the ministry of justice, its reform begins by ending its control over judicial work and implement its administrative tasks in service of justice apparatuses. The writer maintains that problems facing the Yemeni judiciary needs paying more attention to qualifying the staff of courts and prosecution. It also needs introduction of modern technology and focusing on criminal evidence during investigation. Reforming the judiciary system necessitates the promulgation of a new judiciary law clearly explaining authorities and jurisdiction of those in charge of implementing it based on judiciary independence and rightful implementation of judiciary laws and rules. Al-Ayyam newspaper
3 September 2001
Sheikh Ali Mohammed Thabet confirms in his article that a local government system with wide-range authorities is a political, administrative and legal one dictated by the nature of tense situation in the governorates embodied by administrative corruption, security absence and failure of projects. It is also demonstrated in weakness of services sector and imbalance of basic development. Local councils have come into existence in most of governorates, despite various obstacles, as a national democratic achievement to carry out a host of requirements such as popular participation in in power through election of their representatives in districts and governorates councils in the process of transferring to administrative decentralization. It is worth mentioning that through following up of activities of local councils during the past four months there appears a number of facts:
– Local government system is an original part of modern democratic state enabling it to perform a significant role to encounter issues and requisites of the governorates provided that the central authority interacted positively with them.
-Whatever the political circumstances are, local councils reflect their popular identity due to their affiliation with the popular base.
-Local government system growth is connected to self factors represented by the level of their members and their efficiency in tackling issues and tasks assigned to them, related to the nature and peculiarities of their regions and role of their society.
The elected local councils in governorates and districts have shown that their administrative structure is either not existing or incomplete in more than 70% of the country’s districts. That has made the prime minister express inability to transfer authorities to the decentralization system in those districts. Such state of affairs keeps those councils in a situation of postponement and ineffectiveness.
Al-Wahdawi weekly organ of the Nasserite Unionist Party 4 September 2001
The newspaper has this issue published an statements given by the Nasserite party secretary-general Abdumalik Al-Mikhlafi in which he confirmed that the government led by the People’s General Congress was leading the country towards disaster because of its policies without introduction of any reforms regarding combating corruption.
Mr Al-Mikhlafi says that the government has lost its national conscience and is exaggerating in implementation of international recipes even to the extent exceeding what is required from it. It has been carrying out ‘doses’ have not been done in similar programs for more than two decades. He pointed out that the government has orientations towards normalization with the Zionist entity, requesting president Ali Abdullah Salleh to stop for good such orientations taking into consideration that his stand towards the Palestinian cause is positive.
RAY weekly organ of Sons of Yemen League Party,
4 September 2001.
Mr Abdulwasie Al-Nakhlani has said in his article that with the advent of 22 May and Yemen’s re-unification, there appeared to surface indicators of building the state when the national forces have agreed upon stabilization of the multi-party system and peaceful transfer of power under the banner of democratic system. Hope has been renewed that the state would come out with establishing bases of governance and causing democratic regime to take root. This project w as confronted with many challenges and difficulties considered as being normal product of previous periods Yemen had experienced.
Yemen has been suffering from a past burdened with conflicts and wars and crises with little homogeneity with the ruling culture. This has created, among all parties of political action, a kind of mechanism based loss of confidence in each other.
The masks have dropped in the country of democracy and that has disclosed contradictions among most of the parties particularly in their understanding of the democratic essence. Democracy has lost its way, features of civil society disappeared and the state returned to absenteeism , which is the situation characterizing reality of Yemen today.
Al-Jamaheer weekly organ of Arab Baath Socialist Party,
2 September 2001.
Mr Mohammed Assayed has said in a commentary that jurists have characterized the decision of sacking 20 judges and prosecutors as well as pensioning 108 judges by the supreme judiciary council as one step on the road of reforming the judiciary system which groans under the yoke of a heavy legacy of failure, nepotism and bribery which collectively constitute a continuous frustration in the process of overall reform. This condition has motivated many of those concerned with judiciary affairs in our country to unleash forewarning cries against this reality, demanding a process of an urgent rescue to come out of the bottleneck in order to restore esteem to the judiciary system and recover people’s confidence when they resort to judiciary. Litigants are usually harmed due to prolonged process in deciding legal cases that sometimes takes years, costing much money and waste of time. Such is the case would force some litigants to resort to tribal judgment or take the law in their hand, using the force of weapons.
It is important to refer here that many violations of judiciary independence by the executive power, influential people and even from inside apparatus of judiciary power can be traced. Thus the move of introducing new appointments and transfers within courts and the prosecution would be of no avail if they are not implemented in the light of results of judicial audition and soundness of selection of those appointed regarding their efficiency and conduct.
As-Sahwa weekly
6 september 2001
Columnist Zaid bin Ali Ash-Shami has this week commented on holding the UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) held in Durban in South Africa. He says that the Jews are of the type of deviated racism. They claim that they are the people that God has chosen and the rest of human race is their servants. Therefore God has punished them for many times because of their tyranny and corruption and aggression. Now they have established an extremely racial state, expelling the people of Palestine from their land without having committed any guilt but for being from non-Jewish origin.
The WCAR conference has been held in Durban in South Africa and the US has announced its withdrawal from it just because it has listened to what it hates from all countries of the world that denounced the Jewish racial practices against the Palestinians in Palestine. This is not the first time America withdraws from such conferences. It had done the same in the years 1978 and 1983 for the same reason. It has worked hard for omitting ‘Zionism’ from the list of Racism in 1991 and nowadays it adds another dark spot to its history that is full of tyranny.
America is now losing peoples and states and losing credibility and all its calls for human rights are wiped out. In the recent conference on human rights the US came out as a loser because the world is no longer trusts in it and thus was excluded from chairmanship of and membership of the Human Rights Organization. Despite all these successive blows the US is still determined to ridicule all values and antagonize the world and to lose all interests for the sake of Israel and Zionism.
26 September weekly, organ of Yemen Armed forces,
6 September 2001
The newspaper’s editorial is this week devoted to comment on president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s recent interview with Al-Jazeeral TV Channel. It says that the president’s dialogue has been characterized by clarity, frankness, logic, credibility and political dynamism. The president has tackled seriously and with high sense of responsibility events of he contemporary political history with a piercing vision of future horizons. President Saleh has courageously dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s concerning the central issue of the Arab and Islamic nation, i.e., the Palestinian people cause and their suffering under atrocious practices of war criminal Ariel Sharon. President Saleh has affirmed that Sharon’s government, by its racist practices, violence and aggressive tendency, is trying to drag the region to more tension and to trigger war.
The editorial maintains that along with his brave criticism of Arab verbal condemnations and denunciations at their meetings, the president has been practical when he stressed inability of the Arab regimes to implement resolutions of the Arab League or translate the will of the Arab citizen in the face of the zionist arrogance, and queried how we could ask the United States or the European Union to exercise pressure on Israel to stop its racist and hostile practices and return to the negotiating table.
The editorial further adds that the volume of challenges and confrontations nowadays could not be encountered but by Arab joint and united action capable of pressuring Israel and those able to stop its arrogance with all means.
Al-Mithaq weekly organ of the People’s General Congress Party,
3 September 2001
Mr Ali Mathar Al-Athrabi says in his article on the local councils experiment that holding local councils elections on February 20, 2001 has proved greatly that Yemen is following the right course for building the modern state founded on granting authorities to local government institutions. The government’s role in this respect would centre on supervision, monitoring and audition as well as following up higher national strategic plans for the country.
The PGC”s insistence on stabilizing its democratic, political, administrative and financial experiments, emphasizes anew that it is an extension to the patriotic movement that clanged to Yemen’s civilization heritage and abstained from duplicating others’ experiments.
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