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ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 011056Z DEC 09
FM AMEMBASSY KUWAIT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4242
INFO RUEHZM/GULF COOPERATION COUNCIL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 KUWAIT 001125 
 
SIPDIS 
 
NEA/ARP 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/13/2019 
TAGS: PGOV PREL KWMN KMPI PHUM KU
SUBJECT: WHEN WILL KUWAIT HAVE ITS FIRST FEMALE JUDGE? 
 
REF: A. KUWAIT 1015 
     ¶B. KUWAIT 1035 
 
Classified By: PolCouns Pete O'Donohue for reasons 1.4 b and d 
 
1.(C) Summary. Prominent Kuwaiti lawyer Salma Al-Ajmi claims 
Kuwait's Amir wants to appoint the country's first female 
judge but fears backlash from opportunist members of the 
ruling family and conservative Islamist and tribal MPs. Ajmi, 
who claims that female lawyer Anoud Al-Hajiri's application 
to be a judge was rejected solely based upon her gender, 
nonetheless told Poloff November 22 that she expected 
Al-Hajiri's legal challenge of that decision will fail. 
Despite recent victories for women before the Constitutional 
court, Ajmi speculated that Kuwait's dearth of female judges, 
ambassadors, and ministers can only be fixed by vigorous 
effort and advocacy by the Amir (Comment: a popular 
prescription -- sadly in short supply -- to remedy the 
nation's many perceived ills. End comment.). End Summary. 
 
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DIM PROSPECTS FOR ANTI-DISCRIMINATION CASE 
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2.(C) Although recent court rulings granted Kuwaiti women the 
right to obtain passports without their husband's permission 
and decided female MPs need not wear the hijab (Refs A & B), 
Ajmi said that a recent legal attempt to force the GOK to 
appoint a female judge will likely fail. Last month, Anoud 
Al-Hajiri, a female lawyer who works in the law firm of 
Thekra Al-Rashidi, one of Kuwait's most prominent (although 
ultimately unsuccessful) female candidates in the 2009 
election, filed a case arguing that the denial of her 
application for a judgeship was based solely on her gender 
and therefore unconstitutional (this news was confirmed to 
PolOff by Rashidi during an October 13 meeting). The issue of 
whether or not a law violates the equal rights language of 
the constitution's article 29 was a key factor in the earlier 
ruling granting Kuwaiti women the right to freely obtain 
passports (Ref A). However, Ajmi claimed that in major cases 
like these, the Kuwaiti courts' rulings are often guided by 
the Amir and predicted that there would be no female judges 
until the Amir decided to appoint one. Ajmi said she believes 
the Amir, who led the GOK's push to grant women suffrage in 
2005, is under too much pressure from opportunist members of 
the ruling family and conservative Islamist and tribal MPs to 
make such an appointment any time soon. Ajmi speculated that 
if the Amir did appoint a female judge, he would be thrown 
under the bus by ambitious members of his own ruling family, 
who would use the appointment to rally Kuwait's strong tribal 
and Islamist power bases against the Amir. 
 
------------- 
AJMI'S STORY 
------------- 
 
3.(U) "After thirty-one years of practicing law I cannot be a 
judge, but I often have to call judges my son's age 'sir,' " 
Ajmi recounted to PolOff with frustration during a November 
22 meeting at the Embassy. Three decades after earning her 
law degree in 1979 from Kuwait University, Ajmi now regularly 
argues cases before Kuwait's Supreme Court. Ajmi said that 
she had been lobbying for a judgeship since 1993, but her 
efforts have not succeeded despite her long and successful 
law practice. 
 
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GOK, ONCE A GCC LEADER ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS, IS BEHIND ON FEMALE 
JUDGES 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
4.(U) Kuwait first allowed women to practice law in the 1960s 
and was the first to do so in what are now the GCC countries, 
according to Ajmi, with Bahrain and the UAE following suit in 
the 1970s and Qatar doing the same in 2000. However, fifty 
years on Kuwait still has no female judges, lagging behind 
the landmark appointment of the first female judges in 
Bahrain (2007) and the UAE (2008). Ajmi said it is a 
disconcerting trend that even as Gulf states like Oman and 
Bahrain develop, once-progressive Kuwait is stagnating. 
 
--------------------------------------------- - 
MANY KUWAITI WOMEN QUALIFIED TO BE JUDGES, BUT GOK HIRES 
EGYPTIAN MEN INSTEAD 
--------------------------------------------- - 
 
5.(U) Ironically, for years the GOK has faced a shortage of 
trained Kuwaiti lawyers and has been forced to hire hundreds 
of Egyptians as judges. Yet there is a large pool of 
available Kuwaiti female lawyers, who account for one-third 
 
KUWAIT 00001125  002 OF 002 
 
 
of all Kuwaiti lawyers and make up the vast majority of the 
Ministry of Justice's legal experts, according to Ajmi. 
 
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A THICK GLASS CEILING 
---------------------- 
 
6.(U) Ajmi noted that in addition to having no female judges, 
the GOK has appointed very few female ambassadors and very 
few female ministers. "Every year they appoint one or two 
women as ministers as a show to the rest of the world," Ajmi 
said, commenting on the fact that the sixteen-member cabinet 
has never had more than two female ministers since the first 
woman was appointed in 2005. 
 
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COMMENT 
--------- 
 
7.(C) The continuing effort by attorney-activists like Ajmi 
to break through the judicial glass ceiling demonstrates that 
-- despite the victory of four women in parliamentary 
elections in May -- substantial challenges remain in 
advancing women's rights in Kuwait. Bahrain and the UAE's 
appointment of their first female judge in 2007 and 2008 has 
increased domestic speculation -- and expectation -- that 
Kuwait will follow suit. However, given the lack of broad 
domestic political support for such a move, this appears to 
be far from a sure thing, despite the hopes of the nation's 
prominent female legal professionals. 
 
********************************************* ********* 
For more reporting from Embassy Kuwait, visit: 
visit Kuwait's Classified Website at: 
 
http://www.intelink.sgov.gov/wiki/Portal:Kuwa it 
********************************************* ********* 
WILLIAMS