The head of the Independence Movement, resigned MP Michel Moawad, issued the following statement:

There is a difference between the necessity of accountability and the fight against corruption and between the use of the judiciary as a tool in the face of the free revolutionaries, and the private sector at times, but always in the service of the authority or its affiliates. There is a difference between a strong judge with the power of justice and law, and between a strong judge with ‘rumbles”tand partisan and populist opposition, contrary to the law.

The deplorable and shameful scenes that we witnessed  during the past few days are no longer just a judge’s commission of crimes, mistakes, or legal violations. Rather, they have become part of a dangerous coup against the constitution, law, institutions and the state, and they pose an existential threat to the judiciary in Lebanon, or what is left of it thanks to its subjection to political interference And authoritarian power struggles.
Therefore, I call on the Supreme Judicial Council not to remain a false witness about what is happening, but rather to assume its responsibilities fully firmly and decisively and to take bold decisions commensurate with the seriousness of the public coup and the commission of crimes described as the crime witnessed in the name of the judiciary.

I also call on the President of the Republic to sign the decree of judicial formations to fortify the work of the judiciary and spare the country from further collapse and emptiness in terms of its powers and institutions.

As for the required radical solution, it is the approval of the Law on the Independence of the Judiciary, which has been stuck in the parliamentary committees for years, which alone guarantees the cessation of all forms of political interference in the work of the judiciary, and constitutes the correct approach to building a judicial authority that protects all citizens, their rights and property, and holds accountable the actual perpetrators, regardless of their ranks.