Syria’s Parliament Votes To Abolish Assad-Era Terrorism Court And Nullify Rulings

Syria’s parliament voted on Wednesday to abolish the Assad-era “terrorism” court and nullify the legal effects of its rulings, a move described as “historic” by the director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights.

“described as “historic” by the director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights”

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The Terrorism Court was established by a presidential decree issued by the deposed President Bashar al-Assad in 2012 to try terrorism-related crimes and hold perpetrators accountable, and the Syrian People’s Assembly issued its decision during an extraordinary session held for two days within the first legislative term.

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Fadel Abdul Ghani said the real value of the decision is measured by how much it “erases the court’s judgments from the lives of the victims and restores their usurped rights,” while he stressed that abolishing the court does not automatically erase conviction from civil records or cancel search warrants and travel bans.

In Damascus, state-run Al-Ikhbariya TV reported the vote formalized the abolition after Syria’s new authorities had already treated the court as defunct, and the Counter-Terrorism Court had been used to prosecute thousands of Syrians for terrorism-related offenses.

Fadel Abdul Ghani told Syria Now that the Terrorism Court was not an ordinary court but “an exceptional institution of a political and security nature,” and he said Article 7 of its founding law allowed it to disregard procedural norms during prosecution and trial.

He also said the network documented the court’s reliance on security seizures and confessions extracted under torture, the denial of defense rights, and the non-publication of judgments and the standard judicial criteria followed.

Al-Jazeera Net

The United Nations Human Rights Committee stated in 2024 that the 2012 law establishing the court failed to provide essential judicial guarantees, raising serious concerns regarding arbitrary detention, torture, ill-treatment, and judicial independence, and it highlighted that the court was legally permitted to bypass standard procedural protections.

The UN’s International, Impartial and Independent Mechanism said in a 2024 report that the Counter-Terrorism Court operated as an integral part of the apparatus through which detainees held by Assad-era security agencies were prosecuted, documenting widespread and systematic torture across the state's detention facilities.

Abdul Ghani emphasized a fundamental legal difference between abolishing the court and abolishing its judgments’ effects, explaining that repealing Law No. 22 ends the court’s future competence but is not by itself sufficient to erase conviction from civil records or return seized property.

He called for the execution to include removing the conviction and all penal, administrative, and financial effects, not merely suspending the sentence, and he urged correcting civil, vocational, and retirement records while removing security restrictions.

The People’s Assembly unanimously approved the draft law to abolish the Terrorism Tribunal and annul its effects during the third session of its first extraordinary period, and SANA said the measure opens a legal process that must translate into concrete measures to restore the rights of those affected.

SANA also reported that the Ministry of Justice had previously described the Terrorism Court as “dissolved,” and announced in February that investigations would continue with the judges who worked there while allowing victims to file complaints and provide evidence about the violations and abuses they suffered.