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King Abdullah II of Jordan sets up constitutional court

King Abdullah II of Jordan has as part of his reform initiatives set up a constitutional court comprising nine members, according to a royal decree published on Sunday.

The court, the first of its kind in the kingdom, will be the only one authorised to verify that laws comply with the constitution, the decree states.

It is chaired by Taher Hekmat, a legal expert who heads the board of directors of the National Centre for Human Rights. He and other members of the new court were sworn in before the king on Saturday.

In a letter to members of the court, Abdullah stressed that the institution ‘offers an important guarantee of the separation of powers and respect for the rights and freedoms of citizens.’

The setting up of the court comes after the king on Thursday dissolved parliament and called early elections.

Those measures however did not prevent the staging of a demonstration on Friday by thousands of people demanding further reforms.

The dissolution of parliament also failed to convince the Islamist opposition led by the Muslim Brotherhood to reverse its boycott of the electoral process, which it says favours government loyalist rural areas at the expense of urban areas seen as Islamist strongholds.

The opposition has also demanded a parliamentary system in which the prime minister would be elected rather than appointed by the king.

Jordan has seen a series of protests since January 2011 to call for political and economic reforms.


MEANWHILE IN KUWAIT...

Kuwait Emir Sheikh Sabah al-Ahmad Al-Sabah issued a decree on Sunday dissolving the 2009 parliament, just over three months since it was reinstated by the constitutional court, state media said. The dissolution of the assembly has been a main demand of the opposition and the action paves the way for snap polls for the second time this year and the sixth in as many years in this Gulf state plagued by a chronic political crisis.
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