treated in a manner that will preserve his dignity and may not be physically or morally harmed.” Despite these clear legal provisions, ISTIQLAL observed that in a number of monitored hearings before First Instance Courts (4,7% of hearings in the West Bank and 3,8% of hearings in the Gaza Strip), the defendant was subjected to some degree of physical violence by law enforcement officers when brought in or out of the courtroom. These instances largely occur in connection to the defendant’s behaviour in court: when defendants create a disturbance inside the courtroom, they are reprimanded by the police either verbally or physically. Police also used physical force in order to take handcuffed accused to the holding cell inside the courtroom. In most cases, it appeared that these goals could be achieved without resorting to physical violence. When such instances occurred, monitors did not observe that the Court undertook any action to follow-up or reprimand the authors. While judges have to ensure that the accused do not interfere with the orderly conduct of criminal proceedings, they should resort to means available to them (e.g. reprimanding verbally the accused, as they did in a number of monitored hearings, or excluding the defendant from the courtroom). The Court also has a duty to ensure that no individuals are subjected to violence any time while inside the court premises, unless absolutely necessary and as a measure of last resort. b. Allegations of torture during the investigation If measures involving physical harm are used in the context of criminal investigations to obtain information or evidence from an individual, this should lead to the inadmissibility of the evidence at the trial. This is stated expressly in the Palestinian Constitution Article 13, whose second paragraph states “All statements or confessions obtained through violation of the provisions contained in paragraph 1 of this article shall be considered null and void.” In light of the gravity of this conduct, Courts should treat any allegations of torture with the utmost attention, making sure that any incidents are adequately investigated, and any perpetrators are held accountable for their actions. ISTIQLAL observed a number of cases before Palestinian Courts where defendants alleged having experienced treatments that may amount to torture. As shown in Table 11, this occurred much more frequently in West Bank First Instance Courts (16,4% of all cases monitored) than in the Gaza Courts (1,9% of cases). First Instance Courts in the Gaza Strip were much more reactive to allegations of defendants having been tortured, recording such statements in the record in over half of the cases (56,3%) against a mere 20,5% of cases in West Bank First Instance Courts. Courts ordered defendants to undergo physical examination procedures in 11% of cases in the West Bank and just 2% of cases in the Gaza Strip First Instance Courts. 48