Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (ACIJLP)
From TrustAfrica wiki - African Regional Organizations
Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (ACIJLP)
8/10 Mathaf El-Manyal St
Manyal El-Roda
11451 Cairo, Egypt
Phone: +2025310027
Fax: +2023620732
Email: acijlp@thewayout.net
Website: http://www.acijlp.org
Contact: Ms, Hoda Abdelwahab, Executive Director
Description
The Arab Center for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession is a regional organization established in Cairo in March 1997. It works for the reinforcement of the independence of the judiciary and the legal profession, the rule of law, and the respect for human rights and basic freedoms in Egypt and Arab countries. International human rights standards are the foundation of its activities.
The objectives of the Center include to support and reinforce the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary in the Arab region through calling for sufficient safeguards for the judiciary; to support and reinforce the situation of lawyers and the legal profession in the Arab region; to improve legislation in the Arab region and revoke the laws that restrict freedoms and violate human rights, particularly those related to the right of individuals to be tried before competent judges; to promote human rights standards ratified by Arab states and to promote using these standards by national courts in the Arab region and to raise the awareness of the safeguards given to the legal profession by various constitutions as well as by international standards on the legal profession; and to raise lawyers’ defence skills in human rights cases.
Its activities include training course, conferences, campaigns and workshops. ACIJLP has worked with the following partners: Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), Danish International Development Assistance (DANIDA), Norwegian Human Rights Fund, Friedrich Naumann Stiftung, International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), British Council in Cairo-Egypt, Embassy of Finland, The European Union (EU), Ford Foundation, Global opportunities Fund and the National Endowment For Democracy (NED).
Track Record
The Center holds many activities including workshops, training programs and conferences within the framework of its campaigns which yield substantive results. For instance the campaign to enable Egyptian women to assume judicial positions and the campaign for constitutional reform both launched in 2006. The first campaign resulted into the issuance of a decision by the Judiciary Higher Council to appoint 31 female judges and chief justices in the judicial authority courts in March 2007.
The organization has also helped in raising governmental and non-governmental awareness of the significance of the International Criminal Court as the most important new mechanism to instill criminal justice on a global level and to defend human rights. It has also raised recognition of the ICC’s importance in advancing and strengthening awareness of international instruments relevant to justice in general and criminal justice specifically.
Challenges
Judiciaries in the Arab world have been formed by the interaction of the Islamic and civil law traditions. In some countries (such as Sudan and Jordan), there has been some common-law influence as well. The Arab world also includes both presidential systems and monarchies. To proclaim a uniform definition of judicial independence in such a diverse environment is difficult. And developing a global standard - one appropriate for all political and legal systems in the world - might be seen as far too complex to attempt.
Opportunities
First, protection of human rights depends partly on a robust, fair, and independent judiciary willing to hold all political and social actors accountable to legal and constitutional protections. This role involves two paradoxes. First, while judicial independence might be considered a human right, the subject of the right (the people) is different from those who exercise the right (the judiciary). In other words, judges are independent not for their own sake but for the sake of the society that they serve.
Second, judges are both part of the apparatus of the state and part of a mechanism that holds state actors accountable. This requires them simultaneously to uphold the public order and correct the actions of public authorities.
It would be impossible to fulfill these simultaneous missions without genuine independence. This presents an opportunity to organizations and donors to examine and help institute the independence of the judiciary not only in the Arab world but also in other parts of the world.
