The Higher Judiciary Institute in Riyadh is considering a plan for teaching more specialties to meet to the requirements of the new judiciary system the Council of Ministers recently endorsed. In the plan, the Institute would increase the admission capacity to 120 students as of the new academic year. Dr. Abdullah Al-Selmi, Dean of the Higher Judiciary Institute at Imam Mohammed Bin Saud Islamic University in Riyadh, said a committee had been formed to look into a plan to restructure the institute's departments in a way to help it to cope with the new judiciary system, which Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz had endorsed. He said that under the new Judiciary System, new courts for traffic and settlement of commercial disputes would be created, so that the committee will reckon these new specialties in the development plan. Selmi also said that students who enroll in the institute must be graduates of Shariah colleges, adding that students who would be trained for possible judgeships would study for two and half year. “This period is divided into five semesters,” he said. “Towards the last semester, the students will be fully devoted to research work, and they will eventually be awarded master's degrees in contemporary Fiqh (jurisprudence) or Shariah policy.” He added that eight new sections would be opened, including an institute for teaching labor systems and commercial principles, in addition to sections devoted to personal status, comparative Fiqh, commercial arbitration and international relations. Selmi said arrangements have been made to organize a seminar next month, titled “Aspects of Cooperation among the Systems Sections in the Kingdom.” He added that the seminar would focus on the obstacles hindering cooperation among these sections and ways for developing them. “The participants will discuss a proposal for the formation of systems association,” he said. – Okaz __
