Lebanon10 October, 20262 min read
Lebanon’s Constitutional Council Leans Toward Rejecting Appeal Against General Amnesty Law
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Constitutional Council leans toward rejecting the appeal against the General Amnesty Law. Ruling expected on Wednesday or Thursday, with the law temporarily suspended.
7 outlets told this the same way.
Amnesty Council Nears Rejection
The Constitutional Council in Lebanon is leaning toward rejecting the appeal filed against the General Amnesty Law in the coming days, after it had previously leaned toward accepting the appeal next week. The legal deadline to study the appeal and rule on the law was extended to next week because some days were holidays, and thus the period must be limited to official working days only.
The Constitutional Council is moving to implement the general amnesty law next week, while informed sources said the appeal will be rejected unanimously. Judges shifted their positions and withdrew from challenging some of its provisions, and the Council would reject the appeal in full and not accept challenges to any of the provisions in the law.
Decision Timing and Protests
Al-Nahar said the Constitutional Council will issue its decision on the amnesty law on Wednesday or the following Thursday.
The Constitutional Council will issue its ruling on the challenge to the General Amnesty Law on Wednesday or Thursday, after Parliament approved General Amnesty Law No. 70/2026 and President of the Republic Jowzef Aoun signed it before publication.
A crowd rejected the Constitutional Council’s decision to suspend the General Amnesty Law and condemned the challenge filed by the Free Patriotic Movement during a sit-in in Tripoli at Al-Nour Square.
In Romieh Central Prison, a number of inmates sewed their mouths shut and declared they would continue their strike until their demand for general amnesty is met.
Implementation Deadline and Stakes
LBCI said the final deadline before the Constitutional Council to issue its decision on challenging the General Amnesty Law ends on Friday, October 16, and that if it cannot reach a decision with 7 votes to reject the challenge or to annul the law, it will draft a report and the law becomes enforceable. The Public Prosecution’s Office moved and operation rooms were prepared in cooperation with security agencies to begin studying files and releasing all beneficiaries of the General Amnesty Law as quickly as possible.
Nearly a thousand convicted people could benefit from the general amnesty law, while also stressing that the figure advanced in judicial information of October 8, 2026 does not correspond to releases already ordered or to a definitive list of eligible individuals. A person who could come under the amnesties field may remain in detention if another conviction remains, if an exclusion applies, or if the verification of their situation is not completed.