Maronite Patriarch Beshara al-Rahi on Sunday that he was “shocked” as he was watching on TV “a judicial incident that has nothing to do with judicial culture not with the traditions of the Lebanese judiciary ever since its inception.”
He was referring to the latest raid by Mount Lebanon Prosecutor Judge Ghada Aoun on the offices of the Mecattaf money exchange firm in Awkar.
“What happened tarnishes the image of any upright and nonpartisan judge who has a prestige that calls for the respect of justice and its laws,” al-Rahi said in his Sunday Mass sermon.
“We insist that the judiciary should combat corruption and crime without any political interference and we insist on the return of rights to their owners, especially bank deposits, but what happened violated judicial and legal norms,” al-Rahi explained.
As for the issue of the stalled government formation process, the patriarch called for the formation of a government through the approach and spirit of the constitution and through equality stemming from the National Pact, without political quota distribution and confessional monopolization.”
He added that “despite some parties’ linking of the government’s formation to regional and international developments, there are several Arab and international endeavors to push officials to speed up the government’s formation.”
“The last message in this regard came from Pope Francis, who linked his visit to Lebanon to the presence of a government,” al-Rahi added.