Jordan Times
Sunday, June 27, 2004
The judges stressed the need to guarantee independence for the judiciary to empower this authority to confront the challenges it faces. They also agreed on the implementation of a recommendation by the Royal judicial reform committee to increase the number of judges to 800 and intensify training programmes for them. The training includes scholarships, higher education opportunities and foreign language skills.
The recommendations also called for increasing inspection of courts and entrenching the principle of accountability in judicial work.
The participants urged the Justice Ministry to increase the level of coordination with other governmental and nongovernmental agencies to follow up on court rulings concerning these organisations, and called for awareness programmes targeting the public on the services the judicial apparatus offers to them, among other recommendations.
The concluding session of the conference was dedicated to discussions on certain aspects of judicial reform. Chaired by President of the Higher Judicial Council Mohammad Raqqad, the session looked into ways to facilitate communication between the various courts, remove obstacles facing the computerisation process under way in courts and broaden the base of participation in training courses.
Minister of Justice Salah Bashir, who attended the session, said his ministry has revived its planning and studies and will earmark the necessary funding to overcome the problems facing the development process in the sector.
About 550 judges at the First Judicial Conference discussed the 2004-2006 reform strategy.
In his address at the opening session on Thursday, His Majesty King Abdullah stressed that the most important objective of reforms is achieving full independence of the judiciary and developing it to meet the challenges of the time.
The King said the current judicial reform programme can be achieved if the value of judicial independence became a personal agenda and a national duty for every judge.
Currently, the United States Agency for International Development, the UNDP, and the World Bank are supporting a judicial upgrading strategy entitled “JUST.”
So far, the Justice Ministry has been able to identify the main processes, procedures, strengths and weaknesses that need to be developed in the judicial system, and is currently drafting a code of ethics for judges, Bashir said Thursday.