CIDA-Funded Project Addresses Middle-East Courtroom Practices

A University of Windsor law professor is working with lawyers and judges in the occupied territories of Gaza and the West Bank to address human dignity concerns in the courts.

Professor Reem Bahdi is co-directing a four-year, $7-million project, funded largely by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), to enshrine judicial independence and respect for human dignity in the legal system of the occupied territories.

Bahdi said that, until recently, Palestinians have not had an independent judiciary, or human rights enshrined in an all-encompassing charter. Previous Israeli military law determined specifics of everyday Palestinian life – everything from where people could dig a well to when newspapers could be delivered.

“Given their experiences, Palestinians have never really thought of law as an instrument of justice,” she says. “They’ve thought of it as an instrument of oppression.”

To change that mindset, the team, which includes the Palestinian High Judicial Council and Birzeit University's Institute of Law, embarked on a comprehensive project to put human dignity at the centre of the legal system. The project included training judges to consider human dignity in the cases they hear. Almost 30 new judges attended an intensive three-month training session and the group hoped to work with 160 judges, specifically on the concept of human dignity, before the project was complete.

Dr. Mudar Kassis, project co-director, says judges are increasingly expressing a desire to become ambassadors for human dignity in their day-to-day work.

“The bar association is very excited about the concept of human dignity and we’re working with lawyers on how they can effectively incorporate it into their arguments,” Bahdi says.