Constitutional enshrinement of human rights in Arab limited monarchies
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The article, based on a comparative analysis of the constitutions of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait and the Kingdom of Morocco, examines the way and scope of enshrined human rights in limited Arab monarchies at the constitutional level. In some Arab countries, including limited monarchical states, dualistic legal systems are presented, in which national positive and religious law are combined, and a person is given a specific status in this regard. At the turn of the 20th-21st centuries, the dynamics of constitutional development increased in the Arab countries, they updated or adopted new constitutions. Arab limited monarchies, including the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Kingdom of Bahrain, the State of Kuwait, and the Kingdom of Morocco, each of which has its own written constitution, did not bypass these processes. It was concluded that the established scope and principles of regulation of constitutional human rights in Arab limited monarchies are almost no different from those in absolute Arab monarchies; in Jordan, Kuwait, Morocco and Bahrain, there is no mechanism for the practical implementation of declared human rights and freedoms and their guarantees. It is shown that among the common features of limited Arab monarchies in the field of constitutional consolidation of human rights should be attributed the presence of written systematized constitutions that have an authorized character; the presence of a special section (chapter) devoted to human rights; consolidation of Islam at the constitutional level by the state religion, which affects a specific, different from secular legal systems, understanding of the equality of people (the so-called «non-absolute equality»); the absence (as in the constitutions of absolute Arab monarchies) of a mechanism for the practical implementation of declared human rights and freedoms and their guarantees. Distinctive features include the permission for the existence of political parties, enshrined in the constitutions of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Kingdom of Morocco, which is not characteristic of the constitutions of Bahrain and Kuwait.
Author: O. V. Zinchenko
Institution: Yaroslav Mudryi National Law University
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4408569059