- This article is published on the “Al-Hal Net” website after winning the Al-Hal Award for Journalistic Creativity in the investigative reporting category (second place) for Jordanian journalist Badia Suwan. (This article is exclusive to Al-Hal Foundation. No part of it may be published or quoted without first contacting the foundation and obtaining permission.)
“They treat us as though we are second-class citizens. As a Jordanian Evangelical, I have the right to an ecclesiastical court that considers the personal status matters concerning me and my denomination, like all other denominations. The judge should be from my own denomination so that he understands me and does me justice. I cannot turn to a judge who does not recognize my denomination. We have repeatedly demanded the establishment of a special court—one of our own—but there are those who have deliberately let the file get lost.”
With these words, Jordanian citizen Saif Al-Yousef, one of the members of the Evangelical denomination in Jordan, began speaking about his own suffering and that of other members of his denomination due to the absence of a specialized ecclesiastical court to oversee their affairs and adjudicate their personal status cases, as is the case for other denominations.
This investigation reveals the denial of rights faced by members of the Evangelical denomination in Jordan, most notably the absence of an ecclesiastical court to hear their personal status cases.
Although they are Jordanians and hold Jordanian passports, members of the denomination say they are still waiting for a solution that would place their denomination on an equal footing with the rest of the Christian denominations.
The investigation presents government documents indicating that the Minister of Interior recommended the establishment of an ecclesiastical court to decide personal status matters for the Evangelical denomination. Yet the Jordanian government’s position remains wavering and unclear, at a time when other Christian denominations do not recognize them.
According to figures from the Assembly of Evangelical Churches in Jordan, the number of Evangelicals in Jordan is about 10,000. The assembly includes the Jordanian Baptist Churches denomination, the Evangelical Nazarene Church, the Evangelical Christian Union Church, the Free Evangelical Church, and the Jordanian Assemblies of God Church.
About seventy churches fall under it, and they are registered with the Jordanian Ministry of Justice as religious bodies.
Does Jordan recognize the Evangelical denomination?
There is frequent debate over whether Jordan recognizes the Evangelical denomination, and this ambiguity in how it is treated has been one reason they have not been granted their rights through the establishment of an ecclesiastical court.
Former head of the Assembly of Evangelical Churches Imad Al-Maay’ah comments that Jordan does recognize Evangelicals, but the denomination is not part of the Council of Heads of Churches, which in his view does not mean it is unrecognized.
Lawyer Khaldoun Al-Salaytah agrees. The investigation’s author showed him a document related to government decision No. 3594, issued on April 16, 2015 and signed by then-Minister of Justice Bassam Al-Talhouni, in which the Ministry of Justice certifies that the Evangelical Nazarene Church was registered pursuant to the provisions of the 1997 Law on the Administration of Foreign Companies and Religious Bodies.
Al-Salaytah believes that talking about recognition in relation to Evangelicals is illogical and legally inaccurate, because the Law on Councils of Christian Denominations addressed churches that do not have an ecclesiastical court and provided solutions for them, which means it recognizes their existence.
Lawyer Taghreed Al-Daghmi says that even if Jordan does not officially recognize them, international law does not make recognition a condition for enjoying human rights, religious freedoms, and minority rights, including the existence of courts specialized in their personal status cases. However, the Jordanian government’s practice still links recognition to the exercise of rights and freedoms.
On the other hand, former head of the Legislation and Opinion Bureau Nowfan Al-Ajarmeh says that the courts are open to everyone, and that the solution lies in resorting to the courts of the closest denomination, while the Law on Councils of Denominations already provides a legislative remedy. As for recognizing denominations as independent, Al-Ajarmeh says this requires procedures, and if they are not recognized, they must join another denomination.
Regarding Evangelicals going to the regular courts, human rights activist and lawyer Haitham Arifj says: “The issue is purely a matter of rights. Ecclesiastical courts consider cases from both a legal and a spiritual perspective in matters such as relations between spouses or custody, unlike regular courts, which consider them only legally. Each denomination has its own particularity that distinguishes it from others.”
Arifj adds: “It is not possible to speak of a civil state in the absence of equality among Jordanians and while denominations are deprived of their rights, because such a state is based on equality in citizenship and the rule of law. The state’s duty toward denominations—which is a constitutional duty—is to regulate the legal status of the Evangelical denominations and place them on an equal footing with the rest of Jordanians, especially since the Evangelical issue is regulated in all countries of the region except Jordan and Palestine.” He stressed that Evangelicals have no external authorities, contrary to what is rumored; rather, their ecclesiastical authorities are Jordanian. He also said that other Christian denominations view Evangelicals as competitors, which has complicated efforts to facilitate their procedures.
Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion. Article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, ratified by Jordan and published in the Official Gazette in 2006, states that every person has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the freedom to have or adopt a religion or belief of one’s choice and the freedom to manifest one’s religion or belief in worship, observance, practice, and teaching, either alone or in community with others, in public or in private.
Evangelicals… second-class citizens?
Saif Al-Yousef recounts: “My brother was able to complete the inheritance certification procedures quite easily when my father died because he is Orthodox, whereas I was unable to carry out any procedures simply because I am Evangelical.”
He adds: “Wasta is an option that many members of the denomination are forced to resort to. For many of us, it has been the only solution. Some of us turn to acquaintances or relatives from other denominations who work in one of the Christian denominational courts to help us get those courts to accept jurisdiction over our personal status cases and facilitate the procedures. Without this solution, we would be dragged into complicated procedures that drain money and effort.”
Al-Yousef, who works as a volunteer in one of the Evangelical denomination’s churches, believes that the absence of a specialized court for Evangelicals creates many problems for them. Most notably, many members leave the denomination and join denominations that have specialized courts because of the pressures they face and out of fear of legal complications. Some Evangelicals also bury their dead according to the traditions of another denomination in order to overcome the problem created by the absence of a specialized court, according to Saif.
In this regard, Pastor Nabih Abbasi says that Evangelical churches are seeing cases in which their members hold marriage ceremonies in other churches in order to secure the right to have their cases heard, and that this affects the rights and very existence of Evangelical churches.
Abbasi adds: “When Evangelicals resort to the courts of other Christian denominations, our cases are not given attention; their own cases are given priority, which is natural because it is their court. This makes us feel as though our identity is diminished and unrecognized, even though we are Jordanians and the constitution guarantees us the right to litigate. We are supposed to be equal before the law.”
Lawyer and human rights activist Haitham Arifj says that Article 6 of the Jordanian Constitution guarantees equality among Jordanians and prohibits discrimination between them, even if they differ in race, language, or religion, and that this is the basis from which all rights and duties flow.
He adds: “The problem lies in the fact that the Jordanian authorities have granted rights to non-Jordanian Christian denominations present on Jordanian territory—most notably the right to form ecclesiastical courts—while refusing to grant those rights to Jordanian denominations such as the Evangelicals. There are also denominations that are not recognized by other Christian bodies, yet Jordan recognizes them, such as the Pentecostal Church.”
Regarding the procedures that church members must follow, Abbasi explains that if an Evangelical dies, the heirs must go to the office of the head of the Evangelical denomination and obtain an official authorization stating that he has no objection to the case being heard before the court, as the courts of other denominations require this letter in order to accept an Evangelical case. He believes this is an unnecessary procedure if Evangelicals had a specialized court.
Based on the nature of his work, Arifj believes that the absence of an ecclesiastical court for Evangelicals threatens the marriages of many of them. Some lawyers file cases before the regular courts arguing that Evangelical marriages are not recognized and are invalid, and this threatens Evangelical families. It also has repercussions for inheritance and lineage.
Arifj points to the existence of four cases before the Jordanian courts based on the argument that these churches cannot solemnize marriages, and that this affects the rights arising from church marriage.
Arifj adds: “Endowments are among the matters heard before ecclesiastical courts, yet there is no ecclesiastical court among the denominations closest to the Evangelicals that accepts hearing this issue, which forces them to go to the regular courts. Those courts usually do not hear such cases because they fall within the jurisdiction of the Sharia courts.”
How was the Evangelicals’ file lost?
Former head of the Assembly of Evangelical Churches Imad Al-Maay’ah, during his term as a member of the Jordanian parliament in 2005, submitted a letter to King Abdullah II demanding the establishment of a court specialized for the Evangelical denomination. Al-Maay’ah says the Royal Court forwarded the letter to the Prime Ministry, which in turn sent it to the Ministry of Interior until it reached the Legislation and Opinion Bureau, where the matter stopped and the Evangelicals’ cause was lost in the drawers of government institutions, according to him.
According to Al-Maay’ah, this was not the first time Evangelicals had tried to claim their constitutional rights. He says: “In 2014, we submitted a memorandum to the previous Jordanian government headed by Abdullah Ensour, requesting to be included in the Council of Denominations, but the response was shocking to us. The government at the time adopted the position of the Council of Denominations and refused approval, and the response came from the Council of Heads of Churches stating that they do not consider Evangelicals a denomination.”
He continues: “It is not within the authority of the Council of Heads of Churches to decide or intervene in these matters. The proper course is for this letter to be sent to the Minister of Interior, and the Minister of Interior is the person authorized to issue the approving decision in that matter.” Al-Maay’ah also points out that “there are those who deliberately cause the Evangelicals’ file to be lost.”
A wavering government position
The investigation’s author reviewed a recommendation document sent by former Interior Minister Salameh Hammad to Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour on 10/9/2015, recommending recognition of the Evangelical Nazarene Church as a denomination and the establishment of a special ecclesiastical court to decide personal status matters, and its addition to the schedule annexed to the 2014 Law on Councils of Christian Denominations No. 28, in light of the growing number of church members and in line with the rest of the recognized denominations.
The document remained in the drawers of the Prime Ministry without any reasons being given, despite repeated attempts, according to Pastor Walid Madanat, head of the Evangelical Nazarene Church denomination, to obtain an answer. He says: “The decision must be purely governmental because the issue is a legal rights matter.”
Madanat explains that “Jordanian law permits Evangelical churches only to solemnize marriages, and this is a right for which no one deserves credit. As for divorce and inheritance certification matters, members of the denomination must go to the Episcopal Court.”
To this day, Evangelicals have not been able to obtain a clear and explicit government position. Madanat expresses astonishment at the Jordanian government’s stance, which “did not hesitate to grant the Copts, the Maronites, and many other Christian denominations the right to establish a specialized ecclesiastical court to decide their cases, but when it comes to Evangelicals, it wavers.”
Unfair decisions
Head of the Jordanian Evangelical Churches Assembly David Rehani says: “When the Jordanian Evangelical Assembly submitted a letter to the Prime Ministry demanding the establishment of an ecclesiastical court, the letter was forwarded from the Prime Ministry bureau to the head of the Council of Heads of Churches in Jordan. The response was that the Christian denominations in Jordan fall under four Christian families: two Orthodox families, one Catholic family, and the Evangelical family. The response indicated that the Evangelical churches belong to the Evangelical family, and that Evangelicals resort to the Arab Episcopal Church Court in inheritance certification matters. As for other personal status matters, the situation is different, as there is an obstacle to adjudicating them or even accepting them.”
Rehani adds: “We are still in contact with the government, demanding that it establish an ecclesiastical court concerned with the personal status matters of the members of our churches, like the rest of the churches. We are demanding our rights under the law.”
He stresses: “We are official national churches seeking to be organized under a single administrative structure. Accordingly, we have arranged internal bylaws among ourselves, ratified by all members, for the purpose of official communication with state institutions. We have also agreed to work under one ecclesiastical court or to cooperate with any other Evangelical denominations that do not have an ecclesiastical court, such as the Evangelical Lutheran denomination, so that we may come together under one Evangelical church court.”
The investigation’s author asked the Ministry of Interior why the procedures had stopped; the response was an explicit refusal, with the ministry unwilling to comment on the matter.
What is the legal position?
On March 17, 2013, former Prime Minister Abdullah Ensour issued a letter adopting the Council of Heads of Churches as the sole reference for everything related to Christian affairs in Jordan, and requesting all ministries and official departments to adopt this decision and treat it as the coordinating body for everything related to Christian affairs.
Al-Maay’ah believes this decision is legally incorrect, while lawyer Al-Salaytah points out that the Council of Heads of Churches is not a registered body and does not possess legal personality. Therefore, legally, an entity that does not enjoy legal personality cannot serve as the reference for a religious body that does possess legal personality.
Meanwhile, Al-Daghmi points out that the Jordanian government consults the Council of Heads of Churches—“the sole reference for everything related to Christian affairs”—and makes recognition of Evangelicals conditional on recognition by the Council of Churches, on the basis that the council represents the reference in Christian affairs, despite the absence of any legal text requiring this.
Article 2/B of the 2014 Law on Councils of Christian Denominations stipulates that the Council of Ministers, based on a recommendation from the Minister of Interior, may recognize any Christian denomination, in which case it is added to the schedule annexed to this law after the Council of Ministers’ decision is published in the Official Gazette.
Lawyer Al-Salaytah says that Christian denominations listed in the schedule annexed to this law have the right to establish courts to hear cases falling within their jurisdiction, and since the Evangelical denominations are not listed in the annex, they do not have the right to establish an ecclesiastical court.
He adds that Article 7 of the same law stipulates that the regular Court of First Instance has jurisdiction to hear all matters provided for in this law if members of a Christian denomination do not have a court; therefore, the Court of First Instance is the competent court to hear their cases.
Al-Salaytah believes that if any member of the Evangelical denominations resorts to an ecclesiastical court belonging to one of the denominations listed in the Law on Councils of Christian Denominations, that court has the right to refuse to hear the case. Consequently, Evangelicals are left with no option but the regular Courts of First Instance, and this is a problem, since it is difficult for a civil judge to hear ecclesiastical cases because of their particular nature and their connection to a specific doctrine. Therefore, the absence of special courts for members of this denomination constitutes a problem, especially since the constitution guarantees the right to litigate for any person on the territory of the Kingdom.
