“Lebanese Debate”
A new wave of anger sweeps depositors against the background of the uncertainty that controls the financial situation in general and the reality of the banking sector and the lira, leading to the fate of deposits, which have become in the circle of anxiety and fear of being lost. However, the increase in the number of break-ins, regardless of their results on the banks as well as on the intruders, must arrange legal responsibilities, after it began to witness a shift in the method so that more than one depositor cooperated in carrying out the break-in.
This reality raises questions about the legal status and the procedures stipulated by the law in such operations, as the constitutional and legal expert, lawyer Saeed Malik, confirms that storming banks and obtaining deposits by force is an act punishable by the Penal Code under the crime of “fulfilling the right by control, which is stipulated in Articles 429 and 430 of the Lebanese Penal Code.”
Lawyer Malik said in an interview with the “Lebanese Debate” that the aforementioned Article 429 explicitly stipulates that “whoever proceeds to fulfill his right in person and is able to refer to the competent authority to expropriate money that was in the possession of others or uses violence, he shall be punished with a fine, bearing in mind that Article 430 has reached the penalty of imprisonment, in the event that this matter is accompanied by violence against persons, or by resorting to moral coercion, or otherwise.”
Malik explains that what is happening today is the fulfillment of the right through the use of armed violence and coercion by a group or by persons or individuals, and therefore they are crimes punishable in the Lebanese Penal Code in Articles 429 and 430 mentioned above.
In response to a question about whether this matter legitimizes the method of storming banks, or may lead to closing their doors as threatened, Malek expects that he may push to close the banks, because these banks will find themselves in front of convoys of depositors who are basically entitled owners, in order to recover their money.
As for the fate of depositors who abide by the law and await solutions from the government, Malik says, “Today, they have no way but to wait for the word of the law, and we, as jurists, call on them to comply with the judicial rulings that can be issued in this regard, because the act that they undertake by storming the banks, even if it is true, is a legitimate act and achieves the goal of recovering the deposits belonging to the depositors, but at the same time it may harm the interests of the rest of the depositors, and it constitutes a kind of illegal behavior.” legal, and his reactions may be greater than the issue of committing a criminal act.”
Regarding the way to confront this matter, Lawyer Malik stresses, “The need to develop a plan to return the funds to their owners, and to return the rights to the depositors, because things cannot be left as they are from 2019 until today, otherwise the authority is the one that legislates the law of the jungle and works to hide the role of the law in order to find a solution to this dilemma.”
2023-07-21 04:14:19
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