Report to the ... Zionist Congress and to the Council of the Jewish Agency in ... · 1935-08-01 · 8.1935 · p. Seite 476

proposed limitation. It contended that the increase of medical practitioners was a phenomenon of transient character, due essentially to the anti-Jewish legislation in Germany, and pointed out that in recent months the number of applications for licenses had progressively decreased. It urged that in this as in other spheres the economic factor might be trusted to exercise its regulating force and that there were indications that that agency was already effectively at work. As regards the question of the maintenance of the standards of the medical profession and the prevention of abuses, the Agency proposed the setting up of a General Medical Council representing the medical profession of the country to be invested with wide powers of supervision and control. Finally, concern was expressed at the proposed introduction of a distinction in this matter between persons who are born Palestinian citizens and those who adopt Palestinian citizenship, by singling the latter out for the proposed restriction. It was urged that the proposed distinction was at variance with the underlying conception of the Mandate, that the Jew who comes to Palestine with a view to settling there and who adopts Palestinian citizenship should be regarded as being there as "of right" and should in no respect be subject to any discrimination as compared with the natural born citizens of the country. 3. It has to be regretfully recorded that these representations have been of no avail and that at the time of writing a Draft Ordinance was published in the Palestine Gazette providing for the introduction of the proposed limitation. Further representations are about to be made on the subject to the Government of Palestine. (d).—Judicial Reorganisation. By an Order-in-Council dated April 1st, 1935, the privilege hitherto enjoyed by foreigners in Palestine of being able to claim to be tried exclusively by British judges was abolished. As a result of this reform the Magistrates Courts Jurisdiction Ordinance, 1935, and the Courts (Amendment) Ordinance, 1935, were enacted by the Government of Palestine, which were designed to effect a consequential re-organisation of the Palestinian system of judicature. The former measure provided for the setting up of two distinct types of magistrates—British and Palestinian—with clearly distinguished functions and competences, the accused being given the choice of being tried by a British magistrate invested with greater punitive powers or a Palestinian magistrate of more limited competence. The Courts (Amendment) Ordinance effected a reduction of the number of sitting judges in the Court of Criminal Assize and in the Courts of Appeal and of Criminal Appeal. Both measures Were the subject of detailed representations on the part of the Jewish Agency. Eventually Government found it necessary—in view of the legal gap created by the Order-in-Council—• to enact the two Bills without amendment, but an assurance was received that the criticisms submitted would be considered and that 476