Professor Schneider of Work has focussed on law and on legal and civil society issues.
And one of the really, I think,
exciting strengths of her work is that she works across historical periods from the formative period following Islam's founding to the present.
And this gives her work a great deal of historical depth and breadth.
She's been involved in numerous collaborative research projects on Shariya and on civil society,
and she's engaged, in addition, in work on SHUTA in Germany, Iran and Indonesia.
Her work consistently puts gender at the centre of legal, historical and social analysis.
And her many publications attest to that. I can't possibly give you a full list.
She's published many, many monographs, collected volumes as well as articles, and she publishes in German, French, English and Farsi.
One book of her, many that I do want to mention, is her very useful work.
From, I believe, 2000. Well, women in the Islamic world from the earliest times to the Arab Spring,
which was an incredibly useful source book since 2013, Professor Schneider has focussed in particular on Palestine.
In her research and her teaching. And she's had an ongoing collaboration with its university.
Her recent book is The Outcome of This Work.
It was published last year by Bril and it's entitled Debating the Law Creating Gender, Shari'a and Lawmaking in Palestine 2012 to 2013.
The book focuses on Palestine's vibrant and also at times contentious civil society,
the educational infrastructure and the many elements that go into lawmaking in Palestine and really takes Palestinian society
on its own terms while never losing sight of the fact that all this is happening in conditions of political occupation.
Today, she's going to tell us more about that research. And her talk is entitled Debating the Law Creating Gender.
So welcome, Professor Schneider, and over to you.
Thank you very much for this kind introduction, Marilyn.
And thank you very much for inviting me today and for this opportunity to present my book and to discuss it with you.
I think I should now try to share my screen. Can everybody see the screen?
OK. Yes, this is my new book. And I'll say something about the background of how I started to work on this topic.
And then, of course, try to explain to you my research, focus on my methods.
And, yes, I hope I can provoke a discussion about my topics and my results.
I came to Palestine in 2013 to continue my research on law in context,
legal culture and the question how a legal discussion discussions become or do not become law.
And of course, all this how gender is constructed in this context during these debates, discussions.
When I came to Palestine, I realised that there was a prominent legal discourse on the divorce, divorce,
when redemption and the background was a special problem in Palestine, which might also not be so special to Palestine.
At least in Jordan, for example, your film debates the same problems.
The background was a social problem. According to Palestinian custom, young women and men sign a marriage contract at the time of their engagement,
but have not yet held their wedding party. That means the consummation of the marriage still with their signature.
The marriage is already established under law and the applicable law in Palestine, in the West Bank,
at least if the joint Jordanian law of personal status from 1976 and being established like this.
It can only be ended by a divorce. Many young women now faced a problem finding out that their partners were not such
a match as they imagined before young men disappeared or been asked to refuse.
They refused to dissolve the marriage. So there was no possibility for the women to get out of this marriage.
They didn't give that get the door lock. And it was in this situation that a new ruling given by the supreme judge clarion call that you, Sophocles,
gave women the right to divorce against their husbands wish, or even when he was absent, when he had left the country to divorce by redemption.
But only before consummation of marriage, it was implemented in the Sharia courts.
And since then applied there. But this discussion about this new ruling was very controversial, and it lasted for some time from 2012 roughly to 2014.
It was a lively discussion, as I said, about this new ruling people knew about Journal's reported there were TV programmes about discussions in TV.
So it was in everybody's mouth as I returned more often during the next two years.
I realised that the discourse changed and Westerns are on 2014 now replaced by
other discourse about how international law could be harmonised with Islamic law,
Sharia at this time. And this is, of course, the background. President Abbas had signed many international conventions amongst them,
set out the women's convention and without, by the way, Taffe with that in Arabic, without any reservation this.
I became interested in comparing these two faces because I think it was quite important to look at these debates on the longer term.
And I wanted to understand how these debates developed and to understand the logic and find
out when two topics change and how little discussions become or do not become law if they do.
It was only later when I read Shaila and had beeps concept of iterations which I read and thought, that's exactly what I do.
She argues in her book, Democratic iterations are such linguistic, legal,
cultural and political repetitions in transformation invocations, which are revocations.
They not only change established understandings, but also transform what passes as the wellat or established view of an authoritative president.
End of quote. And second quote, which I found interesting in her book, was the following Jewish generative politics.
That means becoming law refers to iterative acts through which a democratic people that considers
itself bound by certain guiding norms and principles reappropriate and reinterprets these.
That's showing itself to be not only the subject, but also also of the loss.
This is my italics are for me. How can I be biased with these iterations in the context of European societies and how they deal with migrants?
This was a topic where migrants coming to the European states of their human rights.
She dealt with the scarf debate in France and so on and so forth.
She never went into linguistic details, as I do, but I'm quite sure that I could use this as a starting point for my research.
I had, for example, already seen that the word for divorce and redemption, the wording for it, the terms changed during the discourse.
It became now Kabah either means to digital means in the court,
and it was differentiated from classical ethical as before, the classical by the word radar.
That means Hullett based on consent of husband and wife.
And later on, it also explained this. Enter the stage of figure.
That means redemption. So I focussed in the years to come on discussions not only on the social level, but also on terminology, terms,
repetitions in transformations to find out how joyous generative politics to speak with love, loving, happy.
And I included, of course, especially gender language. So my argument is public debates,
iterations is relevant because them cannot be properly understood without taking into consideration the development of certain legal terms,
repetitions in transformation occurring in these debates or alterations.
And my research questions there are now, how are Ligi reforms initiated, formulated and implemented or not implemented?
Who is the cat? Man, you live just as they told me in Palestine.
I had an interview with an Al Audy, who is a legal adviser.
I was a little twice the two hour bus and I asked him who should be the person to initiate these discourses.
And of course, he said it should be the state, it should be us. And he quoted the spouse, the cat.
But in the end of the day, we'll see that in this case at least, or at least in the first question, it was not the state who built the cat.
And of course,
I always connected the question with gender models and gender roles are discussed and put forward by whom and where is it situated between gender,
hierarchy on one side and gender equality on the other side.
I use a mixture of sources, text, of course, international conventions loss very close, as we often have in the worst thing.
Draught laws, regulations as we have the man from God in that with law regulation ruling must law court decisions.
But more from the Supreme Court and textbooks. I use also media or used also media texts and discussions and websites.
I also included the Supreme Judges Lecture in Winter Semester 2013 State University,
which I had the chance to visit and which I found very interesting because he
in his course about personal status smol the cause was in personal status law,
how he tried to reinterpret the personal status law and how he very much focussed on Islamic law.
Of course, all the saying that what the judge has to to use is the applicable law.
And of course, with we got hold the lesson the chittick taught to whole.
It was full of his experience with creating the no new ruling.
I had also interviews with experts.
So who are the main actors, if you want to try to understand public debates or iterations, you have mainly three actors.
This is the state Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Women's Affairs. Also, I forgot got to add here.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the international relation question, the Sharia establishment ment and civil society.
This is very rough and I'm very well aware that you have a lot of interferences between these groups.
So these groups are not homogeneous and you can perhaps talk about this later in the discussion.
I'm well aware of this just now to give you a bit an impression with whom I held interviews.
It was this that we had the actually she was minister of women's affairs between 2009 and 14.
And then after her Haifa Alanah between 2014 and 19.
Then these are these gentlemen are the two Cogdill. That means that the two supreme judges, Yusoff, at ease between 2012 and 14.
He was the one who issued the ruling and Mahmoud Habash since 2014.
He's still in his position. So this is another person.
This is our FEMA Sharia judges whom we have in the West Bank.
When I was there were three there were three FEMA judges.
No, they are for, I think the last one with whom I had with her, I didn't have any interview or any interference.
I don't know her about the three months at the time. I oldest saw them and I visited them and I interviewed them.
Now, after the Sharia establishment, we have, of course, civil society and a very strong civil society in Palestine, you might know that,
of course, the EU and also the U.S. eight, at least in the past, gave a lot of money to Palestine to build up the society.
And this is how many civil society organisations, NGOs popped up, like Islamists, like quite a famous line.
It's Women's Centre for Legal Aid and Counselling. OK, before I come to the two faces, very quickly, something about Palestine.
Now, according to the Basic Law of 2003, legislation takes part in the parliament.
Of course, in urgent cases, the president can give decrees, but he only does this very reluctantly in regards to a family law.
So there are not many decree laws by Abbas you can find.
The parliament in Ramallah is not working since 2006. Since the split between Fatah and Hamas, you see it here above nothing.
The doors are closed, but the parliament in Gaza City is working.
It's under Hamas control, of course.
Now, again, these two parliaments should give legislation with regard to family law, and we don't have a Palestinian family law so far as I explained.
The old Jordanian version is still applicable in the West Bank and Gaza.
It's an old Egyptian version of the law.
But the ruling that was given was given by the cordiale code that the supreme judge and he has the rank of a minister.
But, of course, he's not a logotype. So it's quite strange to see him that he creates the ruling,
which then is implemented in the Sharia courts, which are, of course, part of the Palestinian legal system.
But it hasn't passed in the parliament, of course, at all.
No, I don't like to come to the first face we have, which I mentioned.
The face line from 2012 to those 2014. Actually, I hold Habash comes in only later after 2014.
Perhaps I should have left only the picture of use of it here.
And this is the I mean, this is the ruling which he gave. Actually, this is only the first page.
It's the letter he sent to these Sharia judges, to the judges of his Sharia courts, which he supervises.
And then the the whole ruling tried to find it.
It's not so far in in the Internet of the Adwan article that I received it during a lecture in this age university.
OK. Something more about it very shortly, Holly means, of course, taking off closes, it refers to caught on to one hundred eighty seven.
They are Whisnant for you and you are Westerlund for them. But the word Allah doesn't occur in the Koran, in classical Islamic law.
The man has the right to replicate the woman whenever, wherever he wants.
And this is the way it is today in Palestine, too. He doesn't need a court decision, but women can get divorce only through courts.
You, of course, know all. And then she has to has a certain reasons he doesn't pay the money to her or the maintenance or something like this.
And in the classical form, work for a woman to redeem herself by paying back her dower.
Mostly a dollar always, but only when both agrees on the end of the date, the husband decides again.
And of course, for him it's much cheaper than Tarlac because he gets the dollar back.
So this is the regulation V.
We also find in the Jordanian personal status law, which is applicable in 1976 in articles one, a two to one hundred twelve.
There was, as you all might know, if a reform law in 2000 in Egypt in which it was given the right to hold,
was given to the women also against the husbands. But before and after the start of the marriage.
But in Palestine, it's only before consummation of a marriage.
And as I said again, in fact, what's the supreme judge did is a reform of the G.P.A. out, the trading personal status law and your ruling.
And he could be comprehensive legislation. Now, the next part is taken from the lesson which the podium Cuidad gave, which I which I was present.
It was highly interesting because it was his baby.
And he tried to convince the students that this was a very good solution for a very hard and pressing social problem.
So he sat in his lecture. I quote Islam, give the husband the right to unilaterally repudiate his wife for long and obliged him to pay,
and the Islamic Sharia gave the wife the right to fully connected with payment.
End of quote. And then he said this can be called equality between men and woman, end of quote.
Mesaba. He called it like this. Moussab. And of course, I mean, you can discuss this much.
She still has to go to court. The husband does not have to go to court and so on and so forth.
It's not really equality, but that's the way he called it.
When he reported and told the students how he tried to present his solutions to the people in the street, as he called it,
and he said he was asked in his interviews, say, do you want us to believe it to be called divorced mador in the passive voice?
So it was really to talk about active and passive because men are active and women are, of course, passive.
And to call a men divorced is something which was not accepted.
I heard this very often and this is, of course, the judge's perspective,
how he explained his his experience and how he explained how he implemented the law.
He was very eager to show that he discussed to the people and tried to convince them.
And this is true because it lasted three quarters of year, nine months or even more until it could be implemented.
And there were many reports on the topic in the media.
But yes, this passive, active thing also was very openly and often discussed, not only from by women, by women lawyers or judges, but also by men.
Then in the media, this the whole thing, that means the new ruling was called an attack on our man.
Of course. I'm sad because I sitting there and the supreme judge said, why should it be an attack on your honour?
It's a nice and a good word. My Jemena with Labour. But he and his colleagues gave in at least to this as his presentation.
They gave in and they called it claim of redemption.
If today because now this word, if today, at least in the verbal form, is in on to two hundred twenty nine,
you can hear the underlined if you fear they may not maintain God's balance.
It is no fault in them for her to redeem herself. So you have to, Ifti, that the work of.
And so he continued. Thus, we made it easier for the Palestinian men to accept this solution.
The woman's organisation there behind him, this took behind him in this thing. Some of them wanted the Egyptian solution.
But anyway, it was OK. And of course, he also succeeded in bringing the Shourie establishment back.
So, again, the debate was that the debate on onwards and I used for this also cause Alex Kritsky, she did call it, as Kozelek would say,
a traditional term in classical law and one redemption for money and husband degrees in Palestine 2012 in the ruling.
It was something new. It was against something that's still before consummation of marriage.
The man protested. It was changed to either Ifti DAP or judicial.
Well, that actually in that in the later text, he called it Ifti.
But in the Techmeme itself, it could be called that. And all this, as we learnt before, was Moussab.
According to him, it was equality. And this is quite important because this term equality is also used in CDL for gender equality.
So we come down to the second phase. International law, CEDO, Messala, equality between roughly 2014 and 18.
And it was debated. How could how could international law be harmonised with national legislation in Palestine?
Not an easy thing as you have this very old legislation from 1976, as I said.
But anyway, in 2014, President Abbas signed international conventions and also the women's convention without reservation,
this without any reservation. This is very strange for an Arab country.
Normally they have a Muslim country. They all have reservations, either saying generally the Sharia is the reservation or in detail.
So Palestine signed with all of these. Abbas signed without any any reservation.
The Supreme Constitutional Court issued a judgement in November two thousand seventeen.
And in this judgement, Drouet international treaties extend above national legislation.
So what follows so far as they are in harmony with the national, religious and cultural identity who we are.
Of the Arabic Palestinian people is a sentence which again steered quite a lot of discussion amongst Palestine.
Joyce. But at first, it seems to say that the Supreme Constitutional Court sees international law above national law.
Here again, the CEDO Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.
This, of course, the English translation. And here you have in a two embody the principle of the equality sabbar of men and
women in the national constitutions or either appropriate legislation and so on.
So Mazama is in the text. And as you might know, the U.N., one of the official U.N. languages, is Arabic.
So the Arabic text. By the U.N. had contained this word moussab for gender equality in the English version becomes gender equality.
So what happens now? In 2018, the Palestinian delegation had to travel to Geneva.
In 2014, it was signed in 2018. The delegation travelled to Geneva to submit the first report on Sudan.
You have to submit in regular times reports of explaining to CEDO how you applied the rulings of CEDO.
How was no equality introduced into the Palestinian Nedra's legislation?
Nothing much had happened, actually, but in Palestine in this time,
iteration started about the impossibility of harmonising international law and outdated national family legislation.
Women's organisations like Recht, like I showed it before, argue, of course, in favour of international law and especially CEDO,
and they've demanded reforms and they submitted also shed or reports to the CDL committee.
No, still nothing happened. My hypothesis is, and I can come to explain later that Mesaba,
the word for equality could have been the starting point for really translating the global into the local.
That means international law into the national law. If it would have been, it is to be discussed in detail.
So how could Salah look like independence team in context?
It wouldn't, for example, extinguish polygamy for the moment because it's very deeply rooted institution infesting society,
as in most other Arabic societies, that it could have started with things like the marriage age,
raising the marriage age to 18 or something like this. That's so five, you don't have draught law on the table.
And, of course, no law. And this time the series of reports in them, this is isn't news agency was published between June 21st and June 30,
2018, and the title Lost Palestine discusses interpretations of the Sharia, which can be harmonised with CEDO.
And the split between the scholars of religions and politicians becomes wider.
And of course, so exactly the topic which needs to be discussed to translate from international law to national law.
The gender equality discussion focussed not so much on terms that more on general things like the basic law of the role of the Sharia.
Mohammed al Habash, when we met before I said, I quote,
We are ready to harmonise the law with international law under the condition that the principles of Sharia are not violated.
End of quote, the sentence you can hear very often, and not only in Palestine.
And then he argued that according to the basic law, Sharia, is there a quote, the principal source of legislation and muster and assessing?
You might know that there's a big discussion about that.
Our principal sources in some of the basic laws in the Arab world, in Palestine, the content that Mahmoud Abbas didn't quoted.
Exactly, because it's not that it's. Or you have other sources.
This is like while the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Sherry is one of the foundations of the Palestinian laws.
And he said, I quote, Our law is not Sharia.
A cherry is one of the sources and Massada, end of quote, and Islam Abdeen from the NGO and said the Constitution is clear about accord principles.
My body of Islamic Sharia. End of quote. And not the rules come Empty-headed.
There's a big difference between principles and a heated discussion about how to interpret the basic law.
But no solutions are for so far how to oblige.
It wasn't this moment and there was a discussion in the public and then there was also fighting because I mean,
Palestine had signed the Siedel Wiki's, Abbas had signed it and wanted to be taken into to play a role in international law,
to be accepted in the international group of countries, was signed, CEDO and so on and so forth.
And so they have to it really applied. But in this moment and there was this discussion.
Mahmoud Habash gave an interview.
This wasn't December 2018 stating that, according to court, for a thirty four life teaching of women for educational purposes.
Except of course, you know all this reason why more advanced.
And if women want the. And then he. Them.
I argue in my book that this can be seen as a conscious provocation because it ended the debate in this moment.
The whole debate of how to harmonise national and international law came to a stop.
And until today, we have no draught of the Palestinian family law on the table.
The supreme judge avoided a discussion of the term moussab. He didn't go into detail.
He didn't even say, OK, he could perhaps start, as I said before, with the marriage age of 18 or something else.
But no, he just stopped the discussion and the women's societies and the N g O's,
they're upset that they even wanted to try to get him out of the journals and off the TV.
So he couldn't argue like this anymore because they said,
we have argued so long that heating of a woman is is forbidden and especially killing of women.
Palestine has also honour killing or femicide problem, and we shouldn't discuss this again.
There's also a draught law not on the table, but it's there which is dealing with violence in family.
Anyway, no further discussion. So my conclusion is language matters and iterations.
But going one step further, I argue with the titrations can only become joice generated if new terminology.
For example, if detA is developed and accepted in the public sphere, sought after,
the men accepted that it's Iftikhar and his word is rooted in Koran.
It could be a new form of it could be applied. Otherwise, yes, it will and cannot become law a de facto law.
I'm gonna call this to I mean, this ruling a de facto law, Sharia establishment.
And I think it's very powerful. It's a powerful player. And in face, when the show, the establishment succeeded in implementing a new ruling,
the use of these did really implemented putting face to the SRES department.
This time, Mahmoud Habash stopped the iteration process about the question of how to harmonise international law and Sharia and give ya.
Yes. And at the end of my presentation, thank you all for listening. And I'm, of course, waiting for questions.
Thank you very much, Professor Schneider. That's it.
It's a fascinating look at these important issues that are going have been going on in Palestine but are, of course, important all across the region.
And I guess it raises a number of just really interesting questions.
And I know that I'm certainly looking forward to reading the book, and I'm sure that a lot of other people are as well.
So thank you so much for giving us your time and allowing us to hear about your work today.
Thank you so much for inviting me and discussing with me this this. It's a pleasure.
And thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Much of our audience.
And we'll hope to see you next term. Goodbye.