Capacity Building Workshop for Members of the Constitutional Court of Jordan in Amman

Max Planck Foundation delivers the first in a series of workshops

On 23-25 August 2016, the Max Planck Foundation, represented by two Research Fellows and by the international expert Judge Adel Omar Sherif, Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme Constitutional Court of Egypt, delivered a workshop for the members of the Constitutional Court of Jordan.

The workshop addressed the topic “Concrete Constitutional Review from a Comparative Perspective”. The main objective of the workshop was to examine the procedural dynamics between ordinary courts and Constitutional Courts. This is particularly relevant for the members of the Constitutional Court since one of the most important procedural gateways to the Constitutional Court of Jordan is given by the referrals coming from ordinary courts. In particular, the workshop aimed at examining the filtering role played by the Court of Cassation, with special attention to the conditions that have to be met in order to refer questions of constitutionality to the Constitutional Court. The workshop was complemented with a presentation from a Member of the Constitutional Court of Jordan, who analysed the system of constitutional adjudication in Jordan before and after the establishment of the Constitutional Court.

The workshop was inaugurated with an opening address by Mr. Fahd Al-Nsour, Vice-President of the Constitutional Court, and Dr. Gabriela Schütz, First Secretary of the Embassy of the Federal Republic of Germany. The workshop was attended by the vast majority of the Members of the Court, in addition to the General Secretary of the Court and Legal Advisors.

The workshop was one component of a larger project entitled ‘Strengthening the Constitutional System of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan: Enhancing the Capacities of the Constitutional Court, the Court of Cassation and the Jordanian Bar Association’.