The Ministry of Justice was established on April 11, 1921, as the executive arm of the Jordanian judiciary. Since then, the Ministry has aimed to achieve the country's vision of ensuring justice for its people, anchoring the values of equality and equal opportunity, and maintaining citizens' rights as stipulated in the constitution and guaranteed by law.
The Ministry has translated its vision into action. It has improved the standards of the Jordanian judicial system, strengthened judicial integrity and independence, supported the judiciary with qualified human and modern technical resources, and developed judicial methods and procedures according to proven best international practice. With this, the Ministry strives to achieve absolute equality of Jordanians before the law and to increase Jordan's economic competitiveness.
Institutional goals of the Ministry of Justice:
1- Raise the institutional capacity and competence of the Ministry of Justice and the judiciary, enabling them to perform their duties and provide their services with competence and efficiency.
2- Provide the necessary financial, human, and technical resources for the courts to improve judicial performance.
3- Modernize and develop legislation, particularly as relate to the economy and investment, and review regional and international judicial cooperation agreements.
4- Spread a legal culture among all sectors of society.
Organizational structure of the Ministry of Justice:
The Minister of Justice
The Secretary General
Inspection Directorate
Judicial Institute of Jordan
Financial Disclosure Department
Directorates:
a. Administrative Affairs Directorate
b. Financial Affairs Directorate
c. Human Resources Development Directorate
d. Studies and Planning Directorate
e. International Relations Directorate
f. Public Relations Directorate
g. Information Technology Directorate
h. Buildings and Maintenance Directorate
Internal Audit
As part of the Ministry of Justice's continuous development and modernization efforts, the Ministry is in the process of establishing new directorates to further its institutional capacity. Among the new proposed directorates are the: Legal Affairs Directorate, Court Operations Directorate, Public Freedoms Directorate, and the Family Affairs Directorate.
Services of the Ministry of Justice:
The Ministry of Justice is responsible for administrative and financial oversight of regular courts and the personnel within various judicial directorates and divisions. It also receives requests for a number of public services, including the following:
Retrial and objection through cassation permits (in criminal cases)
Special pardon requests
Transfers of convicted prisoners requests
Judicial assistance requests (Notifications)
Authentication of powers of attorney and legal documents
Complaints
Judicial Inspection Directorate:
The Judicial Inspection Directorate was first established in accordance with Regular Courts' Inspection Regulation No. 105 of 1965, which enhanced the roles and responsibilities bestowed upon the Ministry of Justice in supervising and inspecting courts and their personnel.
Since then, the Directorate has witnessed major developments in legislation, technology and judicial procedures. It now exercises its authority under Judicial Inspection Regulation No. 47 of 2005, which is aligned with the strategic direction of the Jordanian Judiciary.
The Directorate is responsible for inspecting trial judges, execution judges, members of the Attorney General’s office, and State Lawyers Assistants at least once a year for appointment or promotion purposes. The Directorate does not inspect senior level judges.
The Directorate also conducts inspections of court administrative staff and investigates complaints filed against judges and court staff.
Inspection Judges evaluate judges in terms of their sound application of the law, fulfillment of case processing procedures, submission of evidence, reasons for case postponements, case disposition duration, legal basis for judgments, overall soundness of final judgment and the annual clearance rate of cases per judge.
Inspections are carried out through External Judicial Inspection, which includes both regular and spontaneous inspections, and Internal Judicial Inspection, which is a new practice where chief judges and heads of judicial departments use special forms to evaluate judges' performance on a monthly basis.
Ministry of Justice website:
In order to enhance communication and establish better links with key stakeholders, the Ministry of Justice launched its website www.moj.gov.jo to provide extensive information about the judiciary, the courts and various court services.
The site's design and structure provides easy navigation and quick access to information for the general public. The site also includes useful links and an index containing over 100 questions and answers that gives the reader a general overview of the Jordanian judicial system.
Jabal Amman/ 3rd circle, next to the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation
P.O. Box 6040 Amman 11118 Jordan
Tel. +962-6-4603630
Fax +962-6-4643197