Report: Rifi's Resignation Cannot Be Accepted without President's Consent

The resignation of Justice Minister Ashraf Rifi is likely to be rejected by cabinet in wake of the presidential vacuum, reported the daily An Nahar on Saturday.

It said that a head of state is needed to accept the resignation.

The government does not have such jurisdiction, ministerial sources told the daily.

Prime Minister Tammam Salam had accepted Rifi's written resignation letter on Monday.

The sources revealed that head of the Mustaqbal Movement MP Saad Hariri is holding talks with Rifi to persuade him to return to his post.

Lebanon has been without a president since May 2014 when the term of Michel Suleiman ended without the election of a successor. Ongoing disputes between the rival March 8 and 14 camps over a compromise candidate have thwarted the polls.

Hizbullah also recently announced that its lawmakers would boycott the elections until it receives guarantees that its candidate, Change and Reform bloc leader MP Michel Aoun, will be elected president.

Meanwhile, al-Joumhouria newspaper on Saturday reported that Minister of the Displaced Alice Shabtini has assumed her role as acting Justice Minister.

Informed sources said that she had previously played this role when Rifi was traveling abroad.

She had signed numerous decrees and forms that could not wait for his return to Lebanon, they explained.

The sources later said: “Shabtini will wait before completely taking over the new ministerial portfolio in order to allow Rifi some time to change his mind about the resignation.”

Rifi announced on Sunday that he is stepping down from his post over the release of former Minister Michel Samaha from prison and over Hizbullah's “usurpation of the government's decision-making power.”

He made the move to protest the party's “crippling of the state and its institutions.”

He vowed however to carry through with efforts to refer Samaha's case to the International Criminal Court.

Samaha was arrested n 2012 after being caught red-handed while smuggling explosives from Syria to Lebanon to carry out attacks in the country.

He was sentenced to four-and-half years in jail in May 2015, but in June the Cassation Court nullified the verdict and ordered a retrial. He was released on bail in January.