National Police Act (Palestine)

The National Police Act (Arabic: قانون الشرطة الوطنية qānūn ash-shurṭah al-waṭanīyah) is the main constituting instrument of civilian policing services in the Republic of Palestine, passed by the Palestine Arab Congress in 1998. It mandates for the existence of a centralised national police service, namely the Palestine National Police, and sets out the structure and responsibilities of other civilian law enforcement and security agencies under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Interior.

The Act establishes the National Police as the sole legitimate policing body in the country at the municipal level, and the law enforcement agency of first instance at the national level, surrendering cases to other agencies as required by established convention and norms set out by the Act (for example, police detaining a suspected terrorist will transfer custody and refer the case to the Preventive Security Directorate). Each county is required to set up a police board, which consists of the mayor/manager, deputies, and counsellors of each constituent municipality of that county; the police board functions as the employer of the National Police department of its respective county, which has exclusive jurisdiction over law enforcement at the municipal level in and across the county's municipalities. Police boards also set out general policy and guidelines relevant to their locality to further ensure compliance with national law, and oversee the budget of the department and its subordinate detachments within the county. Thus, departments are named after the county they serve, with individual detachments for constituent municipalities; many townships and small towns, however, which are counted as municipalities, rely on policing services from the detachment of larger neighbouring municipalities. The Act establishes that all law enforcement matters of municipal jurisdiction are the responsibility of police board-subordinate departments of the National Police, with the central apparatus directly subordinate to the Palestinian government handling only issues of national jurisdiction as well as operational coordination between departments and issues such as training and human resources.

The National Police Act has a section dedicated to corrections, stating that corrections are handled by a separate agency under the Ministry of Interior which operates all prisons and remand centres in the country at a centralised level, namely the Corrections Directorate. According to the Act, the National Police may only detain an individual who has been lawfully arrested and charged with a crime for a maximum of 48 hours, upon which time the detainee must appear before a court in a remand hearing to determine if they should be released on a recognizance of bail or remanded into custody pending trial; remanded detainees must then be immediately transferred to the custody of the Corrections Directorate, which arranges all further detention and transportation to trials and other appointments. Similarly, the Act states that the police must lawfully charge an arrestee with a crime immediately upon their arrest, without which the arrestee must be released.

The Act also has detailed sections on the public security powers of the Military Police Directorate in peacetime, which are limited in the main to guarding government buildings and property and providing security alongside the National Police during large events like presidential inaugurations or visits of foreign dignitaries. For example, the Act limits the powers of arrest of military police to military personnel, requiring detained civilians to be immediately released or handed over to the National Police with any relevant evidence for formal arrest and charge.