Family
Sharia and church courts applying Jordanian and Egyptian-era codes
Personal status for Muslims follows the Jordanian Personal Status Law of 1976 in the West Bank and Egyptian-era family law in Gaza, administered by Sharia courts. Christian denominations administer their own.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — Sharia courts and recognised church tribunals, with different substantive law in the West Bank and Gaza.
Governing law
- Jordanian Personal Status Law No. 61 of 1976West Bank
- Egyptian Family Rights Law of 1954Gaza
- Decree-Law No. 21 of 2022 on juvenile marriage age
In practice
This is another area where the territories diverge substantively: minimum marriage age, divorce grounds and maintenance rules differ between the 1976 Jordanian law and the 1954 Egyptian-derived Gaza rules. A 2019 decision of the Sharia Supreme Judge Department raised the marriage age to eighteen in the West Bank, later reinforced by decree-law, but Gaza did not follow. Palestine acceded to CEDAW without reservations in 2014, which created a formal obligation to harmonise personal status law with the Convention; the harmonisation has largely not happened, and the gap between treaty accession and domestic law is the honest position to state.