As already observed (see above, chapter 3) defence attorneys occasionally did fail to appear at trial hearings, but in such instances the court either postponed the session or appointed a replacement ex officio. When a defence attorney is not present, the court may request the Palestinian Bar Association to assign an attorney or, if there is insufficient time, appoint an attorney directly. In a number of monitored hearings before both First Instance Courts and the Serious Crimes Court, due to the delay by Bar Association to responding to the courts request, the judge simply asked a lawyer who was already present in the courthouse to represent the accused. In other cases, the Court adjourned the hearing to allow time for the defendant to appoint a counsel of his/her own choice. Occasionally, the First Instance Courts, including the one in Nablus, appointed lawyers from free legal aid institutions in the event that the accused was unable to appoint a defence attorney for financial inability, after the consent of the defendant. ISTIQLAL also observed cases where attorneys were present at the start of the hearing but had to leave before the end of the session because of other court commitments; in such instances, generally courts adjourned the hearing to a later time during the same day. ISTIQLAL cannot exclude that occasionally the right to legal representation was violated in proceedings before Palestinian Courts, since it observed at least one case, before the Ramallah First Instance Court, where the judge imposed detention against a defendant who was not assisted by a lawyer, adding that: “A storm is coming and prison is warmer for you!”. Although this was an isolated case during the monitoring period, it represented grave violation of the defendant’s right to be assisted by a lawyer and had an impact on the legality of his deprivation of liberty. Injured parties in criminal proceedings also have the right to appoint a lawyer, if they wish to participate in criminal proceedings in order to seek compensation. The percentage of cases where this happened varied greatly and is shown in the table below. bcibee eb es i fbf rabcb t ie ef cb cbacbfbeeba ee e – 9te i T eeecebe First Instance Court West Bank First Instance Court Gaza Strip First Instance Courts average Serious Crimes Court 42,8% 14,1% 32,9% 56,3% 7. Right to a public trial (focus on sexual offences) Article 105 of the Palestinian Constitution foresees that “Court hearings shall be public, unless a court decides to make themin camera due to considerations related to public order or public morals. In all cases, the sentence shall be pronounced in a public hearing.” Article 237 of the CPC contains an equivalent provision. This also enabled ISTIQLAL monitors to attend hearings and collect data for the present report. The publicity rate in the hearings reached 99,5% in the First Instance Courts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the hearings that were monitored, and the percentage of publicity in the hearings that were monitored in the trials of the High Crimes Court’s reached 100%. 44