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 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 and national level. Each county is required to set up a Police Board, which consists of the mayor/manager and deputy counsellors of each constituent municipality of that county; the Police Board functions as the employer of National Police departments of municipal jurisdiction within their county, and sets out general policy and guidelines relevant to their locality to further ensure compliance with national law, as well as the budget of departments within their 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 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 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 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, as well as the nature and extent of its powers during war or the enactment of martial law.