The Institute of Law Organises a Training Seminar on Access to the Palestinian Legal and Judicial System (AL-MUQTAFI)
On 8 April 2013, and in cooperation with the Faculty of Law at Al Quds University of Abu Dis, the IoL provided training to law students on how to access and use AL-MUQTAFI and relevant databases.
This is the fifth training activity the IoL has so far delivered. Earlier, the IoL held similar training sessions at the An Najah National University, Hebron University, Palestine Ahliya University, and Arab American University.
The training seminar brought together a significant number of law students as well as several professors at the Faculty of Law of Al Quds University. Having welcomed the audience, Sama Saqf al Heit, legal researcher at the IoL, expressed her hope that the training would be purposeful and achieve maximum benefit to law students. AL-MUQTAFI is particularly significant to the legal community, including law students at Palestinian universities. It effectively facilitates access to legal information, positively impacting on law students’ capacity and enhancing their legal studies, research, and graduation seminars.
Having introduced the historical development of the website, Saqf al Heit explained legal services provided by AL-MUQTAFI. It houses regulations passed by political regimes that have successively ruled over Palestine, from the Ottoman State towards the Palestinian Authority. AL-MUQTAFI accommodates judgements entered since 1994 by Palestinian high courts, including the Court of Appeals, Court of Cassation, and High Court of Justice. It also includes rulings of Palestinian high family courts (Family Court of Appeals and High Family Court). Once registered, users can access all databases on AL-MUQTAFI free of charge. Additionally, the presentation addressed the AL-MUQTAFI Legislative Database, spelling out relevant research tools and advantages. The database provides full texts of pieces of legislation, scanned (PDF) copies of each regulation, relations that link a regulation to pertinent legislation documents, consolidated texts, and referential information. Featuring similar research tools and advantages, the Court Judgement Database on AL-MUQTAFI provides PDF copies and full texts of court rulings, legal principles derived from these rulings, and informed comments introduced by relevant experts and academics. AL-MUQTAFI databases can be accessed at URL: http://muqtafi.birzeit.edu.
The training seminar was held at 12:00 pm at the Al Jamal Auditorium Building at the Al Quds University of Abu Dis. The IoL will continue to organise training sessions targeting law students at Palestinian universities as well as legal staff at civil society organisations.
