Syria’s parliament voted on Wednesday to abolish a counter-terrorism court established during the reign of former President Bashar al-Assad and nullify the legal effects of its rulings.The counter-terrorism court was set up in 2012 in an effort to crush an uprising against Assad’s rule, and was reportedly used to prosecute thousands of anti-Assad Syrians on terrorism-related charges.Wednesday’s decision formalises the court’s abolition, after Syria’s new authorities had already been treating it as defunct.In June 2025, President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree dismissing 67 judges who had served on what he then described as the “abolished Counter-Terrorism Court”. Syria’s constitutional declaration of March 2025 had also called for undoing the effects of what it termed unjust rulings handed down by the court, including the return of confiscated property.In 2024, the United Nations Human Rights Committee said the 2012 law that created the court had failed to provide adequate judicial guarantees, and it raised concerns over arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment, as well as the court’s independence. The committee also noted that the court had been permitted to depart from standard procedures during prosecutions and trials.Separately, the UN’s international, impartial and independent mechanism said in a 2024 report that the counter-terrorism court had formed part of the judicial system through which people held by Assad-era security agencies could be prosecuted. The report documented widespread and systematic torture and ill-treatment throughout the government’s detention system.According to Reuters, Wednesday’s vote took place during the opening weeks of the first parliament to be formed since Assad’s removal from power on December 8 2024.Assad was removed from power when an 11-day offensive by opposition forces led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) captured Damascus and forced him to flee to Russia.
