Progress Amid Resistance

IRAQ 181only those who had been judges before the decree. He did not bar womenfrom being lawyers, prosecutors, and clerks in the courts.Since 2003, the Iraqi Higher Judicial Council has appointed formergraduates of the Judicial Training Institute to the bench. Still, only 4 of 79new judicial appointees in 2006 were women. As of late 2006, just 13 of the738 judges outside Iraqi Kurdistan were female, while the Kurdish regionitself had only three female judges, all in the juvenile courts. However, thisnumber appears to have increased. The UNDP announced that 57 femalejudges received training regarding women’s rights, international and Iraqistandards for the right to fair trial, and modern legal research tools duringa workshop held in February 2009. 38Despite this training and other similar initiatives, the few women whohave secured positions as judges have a limited role and reduced means ofgaining judicial experience. They are excluded from the personal statuscourts and criminal courts, and are found only in the juvenile courts andthe civil courts of first instance. There are no female judges in the Courtof Cassation, the 18 provincial appellate courts, or the Federal SupremeCourt appointed in 2004. Also as of late 2006, women comprised 16 ofthe 205 prosecutors in the central and southern regions of Iraq; roughly150 were employed by the Office of the Prosecutor General in Iraqi Kurdistan.39 Some female lawyers run private offices. Female lawyers are generallyhired to address personal status cases involving divorce, marriage, andinheritance, as well as some business contracts and criminal cases.Some conservative provinces strongly resist admitting women intothe judicial system. In mid-2003, a U.S. military administrator in Najafabandoned his attempt to appoint the city’s first female judge after Shiitereligious authorities—including Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani—issuededicts that tacitly or openly opposed the move. 40 With the exceptions ofBaghdad and Kurdistan, female lawyers face discrimination from theircolleagues and sit in separate waiting chambers in courts. Many of themhave been urged by their brothers, spouses, or fathers to stay home becauseof family obligations or to avoid conflict with males that could endangertheir security. Female lawyers have also received death threats urgingthem to stay home, and some have been killed by their clients’ opponents,though the death toll in recent years remains unclear.Article 38 of the 2005 constitution guarantees the freedoms of expression,the press, and peaceful assembly, provided they do not violate public