Beirut (agencies)
The economic collapse that has plagued Lebanon for nearly three years continues to affect government institutions that have been ravaged by corruption and nepotism for decades. They are no longer able to provide only a few services to exhausted citizens looking for ways to continue in a country that seems to have little hope of recovery.
Since the collapse began, strikes by public sector employees whose salaries have deteriorated due to the collapse of the exchange rate of the Lebanese pound against the dollar on the black market have been frequent, the last of which began in mid-July. The judges joined them about two weeks ago by declaring an open strike, waiting for the government to find a solution to their financial problems.
Although he works in the heat without an air conditioner due to the constant power cuts, Judge Faisal Makki refrains from drinking water during work time so that he does not have to enter the out-of-service bathrooms at the Palace of Justice in Beirut.
The head of the implementation department in Beirut, Judge Faisal Makki, says: “The basic requirements necessary to maintain an effective public sector no longer exist.”
He adds: “There are no papers, no ink, no pens, not even envelopes. The bathrooms do not work and the water is cut off.”
In the Palace of Justice, whose walls are corroded by moisture, with no facilities for maintenance or repairs, judges were stuck in elevators due to the constant power cuts, some of them tripped and fell down stairs in the dark, and among them a judge who recently broke her hand as a result.
“I try not to drink water during the working hours so that I don’t have to go home or to the nearby bar offices to go to the bathroom,” Makki says.
Judges are also forced to purchase office supplies from their own money.