CYIL vol. 11 (2020)

ABDULLAH ALDMOUR CYIL 11 (2020) regime, the divorce, the birth, the kinship, the parentage, the custody, the pension, the measures to protect the incapacitated persons, will, and inheritance. The legislator has widely considered all matters of personal status to be linked to the national law of the concerned person. 11 As a general rule, the relationship between the law of foreigners and the constitutional judge depends on many factors: the existence of legal constitutional provisions pertaining to the foreigners including the constitutional remedies to foreigners as well as to the nationals; and the guarantee that the legal order contains the control of constitutionality over laws and regulations. Jordan has a written constitution 12 to organize the political life and to guarantee the rights and freedoms of the citizens. The legal landscape has been enriched by the creation of the Constitutional Court by royal decree of 6 October 2012. The creation of this court is the culmination of a long maturation of democratic demands, accentuated by the imperatives of modernizing the structure of the State. The referral to this court is strictly reserved so that any Jordanian court can not refer directly the matter of constitutionality to the Constitutional Court. According to the provisions of the Constitution and the constitutional court’s Act of 2012, the court is vested solely the jurisdiction to control the constitutionality of laws and regulations ( le contrôle à posteriori ), by the sole direct initiative of certain political authorities (The Senate; the House of Representatives; the Cabinet), or indirectly in the form of a question of unconstitutionality raised in the course of proceedings by one of the disputing parties, if he or she believes that such a law or a regulation intended to be applied in a specific case, violate the Constitution 13 . Thus, the type of control à posteriori takes place only when a law or a decree has come into force. Direct recourse for the citizens or the social society has not been established in the Jordanian system, and this type of control considered as a balance between the executive, legislative, and judicial Powers. It is therefore a compliance check between the lower standard (law and decree) and the higher standards and norms prescribed in the Constitution. Moreover, the law establishing the Constitutional Court (the 2012 Act) prescribes the modalities for dealing with the issue of unconstitutionality that arises in the course of proceedings. In order to organize the question of constitutionality and avoiding the risks of clogging up the Constitutional Court with pleas that would have no chance of succeeding, a filtering procedure was established by the 2012 Act. Hence, any court that intends to have a law checked with the norms of the Constitution must refer the matter to the Court of Cassation 14 . But before referring the issue to the latter, all pleas are carried out by the trail court, regardless lack of capacity is attributable to a hidden cause which the other party could not easily discover, such cause shall have no effect on his capacity”. See also Article 130(2) of Commercial Code. 11 See Articles 12,13, 14, 15, 16, and 17 of the Civil Code of 1976. 12 On constitutional law in the MENA region see BROWN, Nathan J. Constitutions in a Nonconstitutional World: Arab Basic Laws and the Prospects for Accountable Government. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 2002, 25. 13 Previously, the unconstitutionality has been an issue left to the ordinary courts exercised in the form of constitutional compliance inspections. A legal text found incompatibles with the Constitution will not be applicable. This type of control was limited to a given situation and could only have effects between the parties in a specific dispute. 14 Article 11(A)2,3 of the law of the constitutional court of 7 June 2012.

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