After more than 770 days in detention, Jordanian activist Ayman Sandouqa has decided to enter an open-ended hunger strike, in protest at the unjustified delay by the Court of Cassation in issuing a ruling on his case, which has been referred to it for a second time without the submission of any new evidence.
The State Security Court had previously informed Sandouqa’s lawyer that it would proceed in accordance with the Court of Cassation’s decision, which classified the charge against him as a misdemeanour carrying a maximum sentence of three years. The court later retreated from this course, however, and insisted on its earlier ruling sentencing him to five years’ imprisonment with hard labour after reclassifying the charge. This reversal caused widespread astonishment in Jordanian legal and human rights circles, as it represents an unusual departure from the binding authority of Court of Cassation decisions.
According to his family, Sandouqa expressed deep frustration at this sudden reversal, particularly after his lawyer had been formally notified of the court’s commitment to adhere to the Cassation ruling. They argue that his continued detention without a final determination of his case has compounded his suffering and left him in a state of “legal limbo” for many weeks.
Sandouqa was charged with “incitement against the political system” under Article 149 of the Jordanian Penal Code, after publishing a public post on his personal Facebook account in which he addressed King Abdullah II directly, criticising him for failing to take a decision to suspend the “peace” agreement with the Israeli occupation in protest at the massacres being committed in the Gaza Strip.
Developments in Sandouqa’s trial reveal a fundamental breach of the principle of the binding authority of Court of Cassation rulings. Reneging on an announced commitment to follow a Cassation decision undermines one of the core pillars of the judicial system: that the final interpretation issued by the highest court constitutes a binding reference that may not be overridden. Such a breach represents a direct affront to the rule of law and to the hierarchical structure of judicial review upon which any stable justice system depends.
Moreover, Sandouqa’s continued detention for more than 700 days without a final judgment raises a serious legal concern that cannot be ignored, as it plainly violates the right to be tried within a reasonable time. It brings the proceedings perilously close to the realm of prolonged detention without a clear or orderly path of adjudication. The protracted delay in resolving the case, coupled with the oscillation between two different legal characterisations of the charge, reflects a breakdown in the proper administration of justice and magnifies the impact of detention on the accused.
In addition, the reclassification of the charge after the Court of Cassation had already settled its legal description constitutes a profound point of legal contention. It raises pressing questions about the limits of the discretionary authority of the State Security Court, and about where its right to interpret the law ends and its binding obligation to comply with the decision of the highest judicial authority begins. A return to a more severe classification after a final ruling has established a lesser one undermines confidence in the fairness of the proceedings and reduces the principle of judicial hierarchy to a purely formal, rather than substantive, concept.
Taken together, these issues demonstrate that the course of Sandouqa’s trial suffers not only from delay, but from structural flaws that strike at the heart of procedural justice. This reality, according to those close to him, is what drove him to take the step of launching an open-ended hunger strike, expressing his sense that there is no clear horizon for ending the legal suspension in which he has been trapped for months.
