Judicial Reform In the Arab Countries

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Judicial Reform In the Arab Countries
Adel M. Abdellatif Regional Coordinator UNDP /
Regional Bureau the Arab States (RBAS) Programme
on Governance in the Arab Region (POGAR)


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Overview of Arab judicial systems

• Legal systems reflect different pre colonial and
  colonial histories and political structures
• They exhibit many similarities in court
  structure, judicial organization, administrative
  support for the courts, judicial training
• A professional and respected judicial corps
• Established legal procedures for resolving a
  wide-range of disputes

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Obstacles to Wide-Spread Rule of Law in the Arab
Countries

• Inefficient administration of justice
• Lack of Judicial Independence
• Quality of Judicial and legal training
• No Information-sharing in judicial affairs
• Reforms focus on commercial aspects
• Low enforcement capacity

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Judicial Reform in the Region National Efforts

• Increase the integrity and the professionalism of
  the judiciary
• Establishment and reorganization of judicial
  councils to provide more independence
• Reduction of the role of the exceptional courts
• Provide resources to training and continuous
  education for judges

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Judicial Reform Projects in the Region

• Countries Egypt, Morocco, West Bank and Gaza and
  Yemen
• Agencies World Bank and USAID

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Morocco

• Agency World Bank
• Goal improve the legal framework and the
  performance of the judiciary in business-related
  matters
• Focus judicial organization
• training human resources
• a framework for performance assessment
• information and communication
• promotion of ethical standards

• Agency USAID/ Chemonics
• Goal Management Services in Aghadir Court
• Focus strengthen the commercial / legal
  infrastructure

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Egypt

• Agency USAID / AMIDEAST
• Project Administration of Justice Support
  Project
• Goal Improve management and administration of
  courts in the civil legal system.

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West Bank Gaza

• Agency World Bank
• Project Legal Development Project
• Goal establish a legal framework to support a
  market economy and increase efficiency,
  predictability and transparency of the judicial
  processes

• Agency USAID / DPK / AMIDEAST
• Project Rule of Law Program
• Goal Improve the civil court system, through
• Improving the capacity of the judiciary and
  improving legal education
• strengthening the legal profession
• use of IT and legal information
• ADR Techniques

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Yemen

• Agency World Bank
• Project Legal and Judicial Reform
• Goal Learning and Innovation Loan and aims to
  achieve judicial reform legal reform and public
  awareness

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Features of Judicial Reform Projects in the
Region

• Main Focus institutional reform of courts
• Characteristics
• narrowly tailored to address management issues
• they have not addressed legal education in
  partnership with local law schools in any depth
• To the extent that law reform is a component of
  these projects, it has been conducted only in the
  field of commercial relations

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POGARs Objectives

• Building consensus for the need for judicial
  reform with a focus on improving access to
  justice to the poor
• Building networks in the justices sector
• Improve access to information
• Improve quality of judicial and legal education