The 2-day training was in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice of Jordan, the Jordanian Judicial Council, and the First Instance Courts of Zarqa
The workshop took place on 21-22 June 2021 and was formally inaugurated by HE Judge Hazem Mohammed Saeed, President of the Courts of First Instance of Zarqa, and the Head of Project at the Max Planck Foundation. It provided administrative and support staff of the First Instance Courts of Zarqa training to strengthen procedural fairness, access to information, and access to justice for Court users.
Foundation experts presented several topics including the rules and processes pertaining to Data Protection and the Right of Access to Judicial Records. Participants were provided with case studies and examples on how these rights can be balanced with the Right to Privacy and Private Life, as provided for in Art. 7 of the Jordanian Constitution. In addition to this, participants were exposed to comparative methods and best practices in the management of judicial records, document management, electronic filing and archiving systems, and Court caseload management. These topics were discussed from the perspective of enhancing Court processes and efficiency whilst strengthening the right to privacy and the right to access to judicial records.
Participants were invited to engage by participating in live impulse polls to test their understanding and comprehension of the topics presented, followed by discussions on their choices. Each of the two days concluded with complex practical scenarios in which participants were invited to apply what they had learned.
The workshop was particularly timely since the Bureau for Legislation and Opinion in Jordan recently published the text of the draft law on Data Protection and the draft law on Access to Information, both of which await further scrutiny and promulgation. This forms part of the project component to build the capacity of the administrative staff and court clerks of the Courts in Balqa and Zarqa Governorates in Jordan, under the Foundation, “Strengthening Legislative Compliance and Constitutional Interpretation in Jordan”, supported by the German Federal Foreign Office.