|Iraq Table of Contents Although the Constitution guarantees an
independent judiciary, it contains no provisions for the
organization of courts. Consequently, the legal system has been
formed on the basis of laws promulgated by the RCC. In early
1988 the judicial system consisted of courts that had
jurisdiction over civil, criminal, administrative, religious and
other matters. The courts were under the jurisdiction of the
Ministry of Justice, and all judges were appointed by the
president. The secular courts continued to function partly on
the basis of the French model, first introduced prior to 1918
when Iraq was under Ottoman rule and subsequently modified, and
partly on Islamic law. The three dominant schools of Islamic
jurisprudence were the Hanafi among the Sunni Arabs, the Shafii
among the Sunni Kurds, and the Jafari among Shia Arabs. The
Christian and Jewish minorities had their own religious courts
for the adjudication of personal status issues, such as
marriage, divorce, and inheritance. For judicial