Prosecution in Yemen

The Introduction of the Niyāba

Bibliographic Data

ID8965084
AuthorsBrinkley Messick (California University of Pennsylvania, corresponding author)
Year1983
Volume15
Issue4
Pages507-518
Publication date1983-11-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal Middle East Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0020-7438 • E-ISSN: 1471-6380
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0020743800051412
OpenAlexW2113427868
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited7

By resolution of the ruling Command Council on 19 March 1977, a new judicial organization known as the niyāba (formal name: al-niyāba al-'āmma ) was introduced in the Yemen Arab Republic. Derived ultimately from a French model, the new institution has been provided with wide statutory powers, many of which are new to Yemen. Essentially, the niyāba is an agency of investigation and prosecution, with jurisdiction in criminal cases and other areas of “public” rights, It has responsibilities also in family law, especially in cases involving the dissolution of marriage and the protection of minors. In addition, the niyāba has authority over the “officials of judicial enforcement,” and it is charged with the oversight of jails. Although the niyāba's institutional ancestry is traceable to the French ministère public (or parquet ), the transfer of the European institution to Yemeni soil was not direct, since Yemeni legislators modelled their niyāba on an Egyptian legal organ of the same name. The Egyptian niyāba was instituted in 1876 as a copy of the ministère public , but evolved considerably since its introduction there (Hill, 1979). The arrival of the niyāba in Yemen thus was mediated by an interval of one hundred years of development outside of France

Agency (philosophy · Enforcement · Jurisdiction · Political science · Sociology · Statutory law · International Law and Human Rights · Islamic Studies and History · Law · Middle East and Rwanda Conflicts

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