Syria’s parliament has voted to abolish an al-Assad-era “terrorism” court and nullify the legal effects of its rulings, in one of the first significant legislative moves by the country’s new assembly. The vote on Wednesday formalised the abolition of the court, which Syria’s new authorities had already treated as defunct, state-run Al-Ekhbariya TV reported. The Counter-Terrorism Court, established in 2012, was used to prosecute thousands of Syrians for offences deemed “terrorism-related” under ousted former President Bashar al-Assad.
Wednesday’s vote came during the opening weeks of the first parliament formed since al-Assad was toppled. The chamber convened for the first time in July. In June 2025, President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a decree dismissing 67 judges who had served in what he described at the time as the “abolished Counter-Terrorism Court”.
Syria’s March 2025 constitutional declaration had also called for abolishing the effects of what it described as unjust rulings issued by the court, including returning confiscated property. The United Nations Human Rights Committee said in 2024 that the 2012 law establishing the court failed to adequately provide key judicial guarantees and raised concerns over arbitrary detention, torture or ill-treatment, and the court’s independence. The vote is among the assembly’s first major legislative decisions after it spent its initial sessions establishing its internal rules and committees.
The 53-year-long rule of the al-Assad family ended on December 8, 2024, after a lightning 11-day offensive that took Syria and the world by surprise. With it ended a brutal police state, notorious for its use of torture and disappearances. Hundreds of oil tanker trucks were stranded in northeastern Syria’s Kurdish region on Wednesday after demonstrators blocked a major highway near the town of Tal Tamr in protest over rising fuel prices.
Discontent has been building in the Kurdish region amid a push to integrate a once-powerful Kurd-led armed force – the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – into Syria’s army and bring them under the control of the central government. The integration agreement with the SDF, minted in August, has been widely regarded as a victory for al-Sharaa’s government, but discontent is testing the president’s ability to unify a country emerging from 14 years of conflict. Kurds, who made up about 10 percent of Syria’s population of 23 million before the civil war began in 2011, were long marginalised under the country’s al-Assad dynasty.
During the war, they carved out a de facto autonomous zone in the northeast. When northeast Syria – including its oilfields – was under the SDF’s control, fuel was heavily subsidised. After the central government took control, it removed those subsidies, leading to a price hike.
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