IV. The Crime Prevention Law
Administrative detention in Jordan is based on the Crime Prevention Law of 1954 (see Appendix 1) authorizing the practice. In 17 articles, the law sets out who has the authority to place restrictions on a person’s liberty, under what circumstances, what those restrictions can be, and the procedures for imposing them.
The authority to place restrictions on personal liberty lies with unelected officials of the executive branch—the governors of Jordan’s 13 provinces and the administrators of districts (provincial subdivisions). The law provides for no independent judicial authority to assess its lawful application, and includes no mechanism for detainees to appeal the decisions of a governor.[1] The governor may ask the minister of interior to release a person, and the minister may, of his own accord, at any time amend or revoke decisions by the governor in this regard. The person deprived of his or her liberty cannot initiate such a review, but has the right to challenge the lawfulness of a detention order in the High Court of Justice, a court reviewing government decisions.
The Crime Prevention Law allows the governor to start administrative detention procedures against persons who are “about to commit a crime or assist in its commission,” those who “habitually” steal, shelter thieves, or fence stolen goods, and anyone who, if allowed to remain at liberty, would constitute a “danger to the people.”[2] Court verdicts and interviews Human Rights Watch conducted indicated that governors resort most frequently to this last provision.
The governor has a choice of progressively more stringent sanctions at his disposal. All require the suspect to provide a personal “undertaking” to “maintain public security” and to “be of good conduct.”[3] The governor may ask a third person to “guarantee” that the suspect will keep his undertaking, and he may attach an amount of money as an additional guarantee.[4] Undertakings may not extend more than one year, but a governor can impose a new detention order once the old one expires.[5]
The law itself does not specify administrative detention, but this is its primary application. That is because the law authorizes the governor to jail a person who fails to give an undertaking or provide third-party or monetary guarantees. The governor sets the size of the monetary guarantee at his discretion; there is no upper limit and no standards to assess the means and circumstances of an individual.[6] The governor may also for any reason “refuse to accept any guarantor whose guarantee he disapproves of.”[7] Furthermore, the governor may revoke existing guarantees of persons he considers to have become “unqualified.”[8] This combination of absolute authority to set monetary guarantees and to reject those prepared to give them leads to the detention of thousands of people not charged with any crime.
The governor may also order that a person be put under police surveillance in lieu of detention, severely limiting his or her movements. Those under surveillance may not travel outside their village or city, are subject to nightly curfews, and must report at least daily to the nearest police station. Under the law, breach of these restrictions automatically leads to imprisonment for up to six months, or a fine.[9]
The law provides no means for a person to protect him or herself against arbitrary detention by the governor. Formally, a governor must issue a summons to a suspect, who must personally “appear before him,” and may only issue an arrest warrant if the suspect fails to appear within a “reasonable time.”[10] The Crime Prevention Law stipulates that ordinary criminal procedure law shall apply to procedures of arrest and investigation, whereby Ministry of Interior officials issue summonses, arrest warrants, and detention orders for those failing to provide non-judicial guarantees.[11]
The law contains presumptions of guilt, it being incumbent upon the defendant to dispel the suspicion of being a “danger to the people,” or “about to commit a crime,” or “habitually” engaging in thievery.[12] The governor does not have to prove that the suspect constitutes a danger to the public, has habitually stolen, or was about to commit a crime. Rather, it is the suspect who has to convince the governor that such presumptions are unreasonable. The general rule under international human rights law is that detention, in particular pretrial detention shall be the exception, not the rule, and therefore the necessity for it needs to be proved in each case by the authorities.[13]
The governor’s broad powers are apparent in the low standards of evidence necessary to impose an undertaking. The governor may start procedures against a person based on entirely subjective “sufficient” reasons that a person’s actions fall within the scope of the Crime Prevention Law. This is considerably less than what criminal or civil law requires for convicting a person. In practice, governors often invoke the Crime Prevention Law without any evidence of wrongdoing.
[1] In this report all further references to powers or actions of the “governor” include those of the district administrator (mutasarrif), endowed with the same powers under the Crime Prevention Law.
[2] Law No 7 of 1954, Crime Prevention Law, Official Gazette, No 1173, March 1, 1954, p. 141, art. 3.
[3] Ibid., art. 5.2 and 5.4.c.
[4] Ibid., art. 6.
[5] Ibid., art. 12. The possibility of renewal is implicit, not explicit.
[6] Human Rights Watch interview with Ahmad ‘Uthman, lawyer, Amman, April 22, 2006: “There is no specified amount for the guarantee. It can reach from 1 dinar to 1,000 dinars and more. Three weeks ago I had a case of one person for whom the district administrator’s employees had set the guarantee at first at 10,000 dinars, then the district administrator raised it to 30,000 dinars, for the same issue.”
[7] Crime Prevention Law, art. 7.
[8] Ibid., art. 11.
[9] Ibid., arts. 13 and 14.
[10] Ibid., art. 4.
[11] Contrary to international human rights standards, in Jordan prosecutors, not independent judges, issue arrest and detention warrants, which are not reviewed by judges.
[12] The law gives a person, upon being summoned by the governor, an opportunity to “explain whether he or she has reasons not to give an undertaking,” in order to retain his or her full liberties. Crime Prevention Law, art. 3, emphasis added.
[13] See, for example, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), adopted December 16, 1966, G.A. Res. 2200A (XXI), 21 U.N. GAOR Supp. (No. 16) at 52, U.N. Doc. A/6316 (1966), 999 U.N.T.S. 171, entered into force March 23, 1976, art. 5(3). Jordan ratified the ICCPR on May 28, 1975.