CHAPTER TWO. Courts’ infrastructure and organization The present chapter will examine the preparedness of Palestinian Courts concerning their organizational and infrastructural ability to adequately perform their judicial functions. 1. Organizational capabilities A first aspect that ISTIQLAL considered was the Court’s ability to organize their own work, the monitoring team considered two indicators: the court’s compliance with the hearings starting time; and the court’s adherence to the Court docket (i.e. the order in which cases are supposed to be heard on a given day). The table below summarizes the main findings. a) Timeliness of court hearings start The official working hours in all Courts in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are eight in the morning to three in the afternoon, with hearings supposed to start from nine in the morning. However, on most monitored court days, the vast majority of hearings did not start on time, in many cases not before ten the morning. The reasons for delays are indicated in Table 4. TABLE 4 Serious Crimes First Instance First Instance Courts Courts NUMBER OF DELAYED HEARINGS Court AND REASONS THEREOF (%) West Bank Gaza Strip No delay in hearing start 2,4 9,7 2,3 Delay by the judge 61,4 67,6 93,6 Delay by defence attorney 10,8 1,6 - Delay by court clerk - 0,8 0,4 Delay by Public prosecution 22,9 11,1 2,6 Delay by the accused 2,4 1,0 0,8 Other reasons - 8,3 0,4 The data contained in Table 4 clearly shows that the overwhelming majority of trial hearings did not start on time, especially in Serious Crimes Courts and First Instance Courts in Gaza. In most cases, especially in Gaza first Instance Courts, this was due to a delay by judges to timely start court hearings. A significant delaying factor in Serious Crimes Courts is also Public Prosecution delays. It appears that in most courts there exists a vicious circle by which parties show up late at hearings because of the court’s practice to delay the hearing start. This leads Courts to justifying their own instances of belatedness with other parties’ delays. 22