With respect to the judicial decisions issued on the basis of CAT, it is worth recalling here,
that a Jordanina Civil Judge in a precedent case-law in 2014 issued a court ruling that
invalidates an administrative decision rendred by alocal governor, which provides for the
expulsion of an Egyptian worker based on the Crimes Prevention Law. The judge decision
obliged the authotity that rendered the decision; namely, the Minister of Interior and the
Capital Govornor) to pay a compensation, because their act amounted to cruel or inhuman
treatment in accordance with Article 16 of the CAT.
Article (2)
Paragraph (3 / a, b, c):
The national legislations, especially the Criminal Procedures Code is still deficient for its
flauire to explicitly providing for the right of the arrested persons to access adefence
lawyer upon their arrest, especially during the initial inquiry and the pre-trial investigation
at the police station,6. Also the Code of Criminal Procedures in articles (63/2) - ( 64)
allowed for the prosecutors to interrogate detainees without the presence of a lawyer in
case of urgency. It should be noted here that, the year 2014 winissed the issunace of an
ammendment law for the Jordainian Bar Assoiaiton Law No. (25) for the year 2014, which
stipulates in article 8 that ”a lawyer is granted the right to represent its client before the
local governors and members of the judicial police”. But this text is flawed, because it
gives this power to the attorney and not to the person arrested, in additon to the
ineffectiveness of such procedures in practic.
Also the year 2015 witnissed the genuin consideration of the Jordanian Bar Association to
stand ready to provide legal and judicial aid to those who can not afford the necessary
financial burdens. This is in implemention of Article 100 of the Bar’s Law No. (11) for the
year 1972. And the Bar Association signed a memorandum of understanding with the
Ministry of Justice with a view to cooperatein regulatingtheprovisonof the legal assistance.
Also the Cabinet is currently consideing to issue a special system for the legal assistance
on the basis of the provisions of Article (78/2) of the Bar Association Law. Also the Center
notes here, that the Directorate of Public Security is consideringto issue special instructions
to include all the due procudres in dealing with detainees upon arrest until their referral to
the competent judicial authorities. In this regards, it is vital to mention that the National
Center for Human Rights provided the above-mentioed committeewith concrenet proposals
to amend Article 208 of the Code of Criminal Procedures, in order to ensure the mandatory
provision of the legal aid for the accused persons in a crime punishable by death penalty, a
perpetual hard labor ,a life imprisonment or a hard labor for more than ten years, in the
6The
exception of this is what is stated in article (18) of the Jordanian Reform and Rehabilitation Centers
Law no. (9) of 2004, that obligates informing the inmate’s family about the transfer within (48)hours.
5