Building Bridges for Collaborative Strategies for Justice & Community Trust in Ramallah and East Jerusalem districts is an EUPOL COPPS’ led strategic initiative, aimed at fostering cooperation and deepening mutual understanding among key Palestinian stakeholders at headquarters and district level.

This initiative started in Bethlehem eighteen months ago, to unfold in a series of events across the West Bank, namely Jericho, Jenin (including Tubas, Qalqilya and Tulkarem), culminating in Ramallah on 12-14 May.

This final Building Bridges event features a series of cross-sectional round-table-discussions and workshops focusing on addressing critical issues impacting access to security and justice in Palestine, aiming at building public trust.

Key Palestinian actors and institutions, the Office of the European Union Representative - West Bank and Gaza Strip (EUREP) and international stakeholders are involved in the event.

Among the opening session’s attendees this morning, were the Palestinian Minister of Justice, Sharhabil Al-Zaeem, the Minister of Interior Ziad Hab Al-Reeh, the Chief of the Palestinian Civil Police (PCP), Major Geneal Allam al-Saqqa, the Chief Justice/President of the Palestinian High Judicial Council, Mohamed Abedghani Aliwawi, the Attorney General, Akram Al-Khatib, the Palestinian Anti-Corruption Commission, Raed Radwan, the Head of the Palestinian Bar Association, Fadi Abbas, and the deputy Head of the EU Representation Office to Palestine, James Rizzo.

Leaders and representatives from Ramallah’s First Instance Court Public Prosecutors and Palestinian Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) also are also attending the event.

In her opening remarks, EUPOL COPPS Head of Mission (HoM), Karin Limdal, outlined the main objectives of the Building Bridges series, particularly, to consolidate  partnership and communication channels between Palestinian security and justice sector institutions and actors across the West Bank, to facilitate the access to justice and promote transparency and accountability in both justice and law enforcement practices. She also highlighted the difficult situation under which this initiative is organised, while underlining the importance of moving ahead on improvements and that the EU and EUPOL COPPS are close partners in this endeavour.

Topics of discussion include strategic and operational cooperation between different criminal justice actors, decrease backlog and enhance efficiency, coordination amongst the PCP and justice actors, challenges in investigation, ethical principles, debtor-detention issues, early legal representation and challenges on witness protection.