Women judges complete six-month training course

Jun 07,2012

AMMAN -- A graduation ceremony was held on Thursday to honour 31 newly appointed female magistrate judges from all over Jordan who completed a six-month training programme in which they learned from the experience of veteran judges.

In the programme, sponsored by the American Bar Association and implemented by the Arab Women's Legal Network (AWLN), each newly appointed judge was assigned a mentor, who offered one-on-one guidance, counselling and advice and shared their own judicial experience, trainees explained.

"It was a unique and a successful experience," remarked Judge Rana Arnaout, expressing her appreciation of the AWLN for implementing the programme.

"If it weren't for the AWLN, this training would not have been possible," she said after the ceremony, which was attended by Minister of Justice Khalifah Suleiman, Judicial Council President Hisham Tal and Judicial Institute of Jordan Director General Mansour Hadidi.

"It was interactive training and this is really important. It was all practical, based on real cases and how to deal with them," she elaborated, explaining that although she graduated from university in 1996, her university offered only theoretical studies, so the training made all the difference for her.

Speaking about her experience and the needs of recent appointees, judge Eman Al Rousan, who served as a mentor in the programme, said, "it is important for judges to learn to be patient", voicing hope that the trainees have learned this lesson through their training.

Both the defendant and the plaintiff are usually angry when they appear in a magistrate court, so a judge needs to be courteous, calm and patient in order to hear both sides, newly appointed judge and trainee Kafa Shatanawi elaborated.

As for veteran judge Badi Al Majali, the most thorny and interesting issue that he discussed with his trainees was land distribution in property and inheritance cases.

"Settling real estate and property issues requires a great deal of experience, so that is part of the training which newly appointed judges really needed to know more about," he said.

In many cases, a land plot might belong to several parties, and they will seek magistrate courts to settle distribution issues, said Majali, who works at a court in Salt, adding that this type of case is very common outside Amman.

Speaking at yesterday's ceremony, Suleiman expressed his support for women judges and commended their efforts.

Magistrate judges rule on minor cases and are allowed to impose prison terms of no more than two years and fines of no more than JD7,000.

At present, there are 108 female judges in Jordan, according to the AWLN.