The two-day Fourth Arab Conference for Attorneys General and Chief Investigators, which is to tackle issues such as terrorism, drug trafficking, smuggling, bank fraud, cyber crimes and corruption, was launched in Doha yesterday. Addressing the opening session, Qatar’s Attorney General HE Ali bin Fetais al-Marri said that the strategic work plan of the Arab judicial system should be reviewed. HH the Heir Apparent Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani holding talks with the heads of public prosecutions, attorneys general and heads of investigation in the Arab countries, who are in Qatar to attend the Fourth Arab Conference in Doha “The co-operation among the Arab judiciaries has led to success”, he said, adding “however, to allow further implementation of the past conferences’ recommendations we should review our work strategy”. The attorney general pointed out to the importance of maintaining regular communication among Arab judiciaries, in order to create new work methods, rather than turning into custom-built institutions. The Arab Centre for Legal and Judicial Research commissioner Samir Aliya said that such forums guaranteed the independence of judiciary systems. “Societies can then be assured that prosecution and judicial ruling are independent of each other”, he said, adding “this can be achieved by assigning the preliminary investigation and the preparation of the case to the general prosecution, in some countries”. Aliya explained that when the public prosecution decides that there is no basis for a case, this would spare the judiciary system from following up “unserious cases” and provide them the chance of looking into the important ones. He said that if the public prosecution decided that there were strong bases for a case, this would outline the judiciary’s scope of work. “By specifying the case’s topic and parties involved, a lot of time and effort would be saved for the judiciary”, he stated. The official pointed out that the public prosecution was not an opponent of the defendant. “Public prosecution does not want to accuse the defendant and assign the toughest sanctions,” he said, adding “it is just a public authority which aims at proper implementation of the law”. Egyptian Attorney General Abdulmajid Mahmoud said that the rise in international crime was not met with developing appropriate counter methods. “The laws most countries have to fight crimes and criminals are not enough to counter the phenomenon of international crimes that cross borders”, he stated. Mahmoud urged the Arab attorney generals and prosecutors to agree on a judicial co-operation accord, which facilitates extraditions of all types of convicted persons. He urged them to finalise a database, which includes all Arab criminal laws, as well as organising training courses for those responsible for fighting corruption and terrorism. http://gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2&item_no=390091&version=1&template_id=36&parent_id=16

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