Ref: 15/2018
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) opened the third and fourth training courses for this year in the field of Personal Status Law for young lawyers to help them obtaining the license to practice Law before sharia courts. The training courses were attended by 80 male and female lawyers from Rafah and Gaza and held between 28 March and 05 April 2018 in Marna House Training Hall in Gaza City.
In the Opening session, ‘Abdel Halim Abu Samrah, Director of PCHR’s Training Unit, welcomed the participants and talked about PCHR’s role in promoting and protecting human rights and PCHR’s services provided for victims of violations. He pointed out that this course aims at strengthening the capacity of trainee lawyers in order to obtain the license to practice sharia law and be qualified for pleading before sharia courts to defend women’s rights. He also invited all participants to head to PCHR to benefit from its experience in all the course’s topics relevant to Sharia judiciary, emphasizing that PCHR’s doors are always open for them.
Ayman Abu ‘Eishah, President of the Sharia Bar Association in Gaza, stressed PCHR’s distinctive role in disseminating the culture of human rights and rule of law among young lawyers, pointing out to the great relationship between PCHR and the Bar. He added that he course was characterized with its rich topics that will have a positive impact on lawyers’ professional level in a way that would help them to pass their practice law license exam to plead before the sharia courts in the Gaza Strip and help them to easily understand the Family Law and so positively reflect on women’s conditions.
Mona Shawa, Head of PCHR’s Women’s Unit, welcomed the paritpants in the training course and stressed that PCHR supports male and female young lawyers and refines their legal skills in the field of defending human rights, particularly women’s rights. She added that PCHR’s relation with lawyers continues even after the course ends, inviting all participants to benefit from the Women’s Unit to build their capacities. She added that PCHR will continue its efforts to create a generation of lawyers who defend women’s rights.
The program of the course included a number of international human rights instruments, including the International Bill of Human Rights (the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights); the Two Additional Protocols; Convention on the Rights of the Child; Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW); Universal Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women; Sharia Procedure Law provisions of inheritance and mandated will; the Personal Status Law; family law; Palestinian Execution Act; Lawyers’ Code of Conduct; Cases and Rulings; and Mecelle “the Civil Code of Ottoman Empire.” The 35-hour training course addressed those topics within 7 days consecutively.
A team of specialized trainers supervised the training sessions. The team included ‘Abdel Halim Abu Samrah, Director of PCHR’s Training Unit, Khalil Shaheen, Director of PCHR’s Economic and Social Rights Unit, Mona Shawa, Head of PCHR’s Women’s Unit, Mohammed ‘Atallah, a trainer at PCHR, Hanan Matar, lawyer at PCHR Women’s Rights Unit and Majeda Shehada, a researcher at PCHR’s Women’s Unit, in addition to sharia judges namely Sa’id Abu al-Jubein, Ibrahim al-Najjar, ‘Omer Nofal; and Ahmed al-Buhaisi.
