Collective Action
Demonstrators protest outside the office of Judge Habib Mezher to emphasize that he does not have the jurisdiction to remove an investigating judge
A dozen activists affiliated with the Noun organization, a women’s group inspired by the Oct. 17, 2019, uprising and born after the 2020 Beirut port explosion, on Tuesday used red wax to seal the office of Judge Habib Mezher of the Court of Appeals as a symbolic move to emphasize that Mezher should not hold his current position. The group contends that Mezher overstepped the law by suspending Judge Tarek Bitar’s probe into the blast last week. Bitar was forced to halt the investigation on Thursday after the Court of Appeals notified him of a lawsuit submitted by former minister Youssef Fenianos, who the judge had summoned for interrogation. Legal experts previously told L'Orient Today that the Court of Appeals does not have the jurisdiction to remove an investigating judge and that lawsuits filed to the court requesting Bitar’s replacement were merely a stalling tactic.