Recently, the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan took a significant step by amending the Sharia Enforcement Law for 2025 in an ongoing effort to modernize the judicial system and enhance the principles of restorative justice. This amendment represents a crucial turning point in developing mechanisms for the execution of judicial decisions by introducing an electronic monitoring system as an alternative or complementary tool to imprisonment in personal status cases dealt with by the Jordanian Sharia courts for the year 2025 "imprisonment of the debtor," which harbors numerous benefits ensuring the debtor's "the sentenced" freedom and the creditor's "the awarded" right. However, how will family justice be achieved through digital monitoring, and is it an alternative to imprisonment or complementary, and does the sentenced benefit from this electronic monitoring???
The amendment revolves around adding a new paragraph to article (13) of the original law number (10) for the year 2013, which states: "Subjecting the sentenced to electronic monitoring before deciding on imprisonment, while preserving the original punishment duration according to terms and conditions that fall under the discretion of the judicial authority." The amended legal legislation facilitates the creditor's "the awarded" right gain through subjecting "the sentenced" debtor to electronic monitoring which is given a specific duration by the chief of enforcement without abolishing the original imprisonment punishment which has become the last option resorted to compelling the sentenced to fulfill their debt to the awarded. Moreover, the amended legal legislation organizes family life by ensuring the debtor's "the sentenced" continuous work until fulfilling the payment obligation and collecting the creditor's "the awarded" right as it builds on living expenses. Also, this digital monitoring preserved the father's "the sentenced" right by not vanishing the right to see the minors and keeping the family bond robust and based on family reformation and preserving the minor's right from moral decay that if grew would create corruption within society. And as for the legislator's acuity from the amended law for incarcerating debtors in the Sharia Enforcement Law for the year 2025 in the electronic monitoring strategy with the technological evolution that reduced the pressure on overcrowded prisons, based on arrest warrants issued within the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan from the beginning of February to the end of November, the number of arrest warrants issued was 7229, indicating a vast number that is subjected to job discontinuation and monthly earning suspension, which was a cause for the increase in divorce cases recently reported, and enabling the individual to stay in their natural environment instead of isolation in prison, and enhancing restorative justice through providing an opportunity for rectification without complete separation from society while ensuring the rights of the concerned parties and achieving the punishment goals.
In the end, this flexible imprisonment under digital surveillance is monitored within the specialized units attached to a wrist or ankle of the sentenced, linking the bracelet to a specialized monitoring center belonging to the Directorate of Operations and Control in the Public Security. Precise tracking of movements and confirming compliance with the geographical and temporal range defined by the court is a strict procedure for collecting rights, and as I see in this legislation, it represents a significant shift in the Jordanian judicial system, combining the authenticity of Islamic legislation and the modernity of legal tools, and the amendment of the Sharia Enforcement Law modified for the year 2025 focuses on reformation and rehabilitation instead of mere punishment.
