Kuwait
City: In a breakthrough decision taken by Kuwait's High
Judiciary Council, women in Kuwait will soon be appointed to the
judiciary and would also be able to practice as lawyers.
Female graduates from the colleges of law and Sharia will be able
to join fellow male graduates in the appointment to the public
prosecution following a decision by the High Judiciary Council,
legal sources told local Arabic daily Al Jareeda.
The Council has
informed Jamal Al Sheehab, the justice minister, about the move
and he did not mind. Appointments to the public prosecution will
be gradually followed by appointments as judges in specific areas,
the sources added.
The Council said that Kuwaiti women have been
appointed to almost all areas and that some became government
ministers.
“There is no legal text or provisions in the
constitution that bars women from working in the judiciary,” the
Council reportedly said.
“The parliament at one time approved the
appointment of 190 women as investigators in the public
prosecution, so it is not really something new for the parliament
even though it did not materialize.”
According to the sources, the Council will initially appoint five
to seven female public prosecutors.
“It will be like a try to
familiarize the Kuwaiti society with the development and it will
be followed by the appointment of female judges,” the sources
said.
Applications for the positions will be accepted from
graduates with high scores ranging between 80 per cent for the law
college and 90 per cent for the Sharia faculty from September 23
to October 11 by the justice ministry, the sources said.
Successful candidates will undergo a two-year training focusing on
personal status, printing, publishing and audio-visual, and
juvenile prosecution sections. The female prosecutors will need a
five to seven year experience before they are appointed judges,
the sources said.
In June 2006, Bahrain became the first Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
country to appoint a woman judge. Mona Jassem Al Kawari was
appointed to the civil courts.
In the UAE, Kholoud Ahmad Jouan Al
Dhaheri became in March 2008 the country’s first female judge. In
2010, Qatar appointed Sheikha Maha Mansour Al Thani as its first
woman judge.
Morocco was the first Arab country to have a woman
judge when it appointed Amina Abdul Razzak as a judge in a Rabat
court in 1961.
Kuwaiti women have recently
succeeded to make strides in areas that had been strictly confined
to men.
In 2005, the parliament agreed to
give women full political rights and allowed them to vote and
stand in parliamentary and local elections for the first time in
the country’s history.
In 2009 four women won seats in the
50-member parliament in the only successful bid.
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