Re-evaluation of Judges’ Conditions for Disabilities: A Comparative Study of Islamic Jurisprudence and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.31958/juris.v25i1.15992Keywords:
Disability, Blind Judges, Shurūṭ al-Qāḍī, CRPD, Saudi Judiciary, Islamic Jurisprudence, MaqāṣidAbstract
Contemporary judicial systems increasingly recognize disability inclusion as a matter of equal access to justice, yet classical Islamic jurisprudence is often perceived as conditioning judicial office on bodily integrity. This article re-evaluates the eligibility of persons with physical disabilities, particularly blindness, to serve as judges by comparing classical fiqh positions across the four madhāhib with Saudi judicial practice under Nizām al-Qaḍā’ and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Employing library-based legal research with a normative, comparative, and maqāṣid-oriented analysis, the study examines authoritative juristic texts, Saudi judicial regulations, and core CRPD provisions on legal capacity and access to justice. The findings demonstrate a cross-system consensus that mental competence (salāmah al-ʿaql) and moral integrity (al-adālah) constitute the fundamental requirements for judicial office, whereas physical conditions function as instrumental requirements (wasīlah) subject to institutional accommodation. Saudi precedents, most notably the appointments of blind judges such as Ibn Bāz and Ibn Ḥumayd, demonstrate compatibility in law in action between Islamic legal reasoning and inclusive judicial standards. The article contributes by articulating a maqāṣid-based reconciliation between fiqh and disability rights norms and proposes an implementable framework for inclusive judicial recruitment through functional capacity assessment and reasonable accommodation.
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