The Association of Banks in Lebanon is heading to stop its strike in response to the government’s measures, which were represented by Prime Minister Najib Mikati’s request, yesterday, of the Minister of Interior, Bassam Al-Mawlawi, to instruct the security services to control the abuses and not to implement any action taken by Judge Ghada Aoun (affiliated with the “Free Patriotic Movement”) in the matter. A number of banks pursued it.
The Association of Banks had described Judge Aoun’s practices as “arbitrary,” and regretted “accepting claims from people who are not deposited with banks and submitting them to certain judges who are not competent, neither qualitatively nor spatially, except because these judges have anti-banking positions.”
It is expected that work in banks will return to what it was before the strike, starting from the beginning of next week, and perhaps from tomorrow (Friday).
The legal representative of the Association of Banks, lawyer Akram Azuri, told Asharq Al-Awsat that “the imbalance in dealing with banks becomes the responsibility of the Supreme Judicial Council, the Minister of Justice and the political authority to deal with it.” He added that he has the right to criticize any defective judicial decision without offending the judge who made it, in accordance with legal principles.
Regarding the positive atmosphere that the Prime Minister spoke about and his expectation that the banks’ strike will stop within 48 hours, Azoury said: “If President Mikati manages to address the legal imbalance in dealing with banks, the strike will stop within 48 minutes, no more. And matters are subject to the promised treatment.”
Yesterday, there was relief among the senior bankers. The fact that the measures taken by the Prime Minister and the Minister of Interior directly dealt with the issue of security protection for what they considered arbitrary in some judicial practices.
Mikati calls for an end to the “transgressions” of a judge affiliated with the “Free Patriot”
