Workshop: “Fundamental Principles of Constitutional Law: The Protection of Fundamental Rights and the Constitutional Guarantee of a Fair Trial”
The Max Planck Foundation, in partnership with the Judicial Institute of Jordan, delivered the third and final workshop in a series of workshops for judges of the Courts of Jordan from 12–15 October 2015 in Amman, Jordan. The workshop centered around the topic of “Fundamental Principles of Constitutional Law: The Protection of Fundamental Rights and the Constitutional Guarantee of a Fair Trial”.
Underscoring the strong cooperation between the Judicial Institute and the Max Planck Foundation, the workshop was delivered by experts from the Foundation and was complemented with presentations from two senior judges from the Jordanian Courts who presented papers on the procedural hierarchy of Courts in Jordan and the consideration and use of constitutional principles in the jurisprudence of the domestic Courts.
The workshop was designed and delivered to align with the Foundation’s wider support to the Constitutional Court and the Judicial Institute in Jordan. The Foundation’s multilateral approach and support package concurrently builds the capacity of the Members of the Constitutional Court as well as of serving and trainee judges of the ordinary Courts. It is envisaged that this approach will help to increase the understanding of ordinary court judges of the functions of the newly created Constitutional Court, outline the procedures for referring questions of constitutional relevance to it and strengthen the constitutional and court system overall. The subjects covered during the workshop and the ensuing discussions will, in the long term, contribute to enhanced compliance with the modified court system.
The workshop presentations were approached from a comparative legal perspective, using examples of constitutional court practice from the region and abroad, whilst maintaining a focus on the Jordanian legal context to assess the extent of applicability and practicality of the options discussed. This technical and comparative legal approach provided the judges with improved insight into the functions and experiences of Constitutional Courts in both long-established and newly-formed constitutional court systems and the opportunity to analyse the relevance of various models for the Jordanian legal system.
The workshop was well attended by more than 22 serving and trainee Judges representing various regions and cities, as well as a variety of civil and criminal Courts in Jordan. Enhanced cooperation between the Max Planck Foundation and the Judicial Institute continues to be strengthened and it is envisaged that the cooperation will continue in the years to come.
The workshops comprise one component of the program for “Support to the Constitutional Court and Judicial Institutions of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan”, funded by the German Federal Foreign Office and implemented by the Max Planck Foundation.