The legal system in Jordan is based on Islamic law

The legal system in Jordan is based on Islamic law for both civil and criminal matters, except for non-Muslim communities' members.
On 21 December 2014, after eight-year death penalty moratorium, Jordan resumed executions.
Thirty-eight crimes are punishable by death in Jordan, as stipulated in five laws: the Military Penal Code, the Penal Code, the Guns and Ammunitions Law, the State Secrets Law and the Narcotics Law.
In August 2006, Jordan abolished the death penalty for crimes related to drugs, weapons and explosives. However, the Kingdom was not carrying out any executions only due to His Majesty King Abdullah’s will and not out of an official stance. Article 93 of the Constitution reads that “no death sentence may be carried out unless ratified by the King. Every such sentence shall be submitted to him by the Council of Ministers along with the council’s view on it”.
Reducing the number of crimes eligible for capital punishment is one of the changes that have been proposed by an ad hoc Justice Ministry committee comprised of judges, lawyers and jurists tasked with updating Jordan’s Penal Code. The group has been meeting since August 2008 to address what the ministry sees as loopholes in the current legal system.
In 2010, amendments to the Jordanian Penal Code removed the death penalty for crimes of armed rebellion against the constitutional authorities (art. 137/1) and arson resulting in death (art. 372), replacing it with a maximum of 30-year-jail sentence.
On 4 March 2010, Jordanian Justice Minister M. Ayman Odeh said that shortly he would submit to the Council of Ministers a new amendment to the Penal Code that substitutes the death penalty for life imprisonment.
On 16-17 June 2012, legal and human rights experts from around the world convened in Amman at the 10th annual conference for the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty to discuss the "universality" of efforts to combat the death penalty. Jordan’s Justice Ministry Secretary General Mustafa Assaf noted that a moratorium imposed on executions in Jordan in 2006 was an indicator of a high political will to abolish the death penalty.
In 2010, the Human Rights Committee recommended in its concluding observations that Jordan accede to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The Committee also commended Jordan’s efforts at establishing a de facto moratorium on the death penalty since 2007.
On 22 April 2014, the House of Representatives endorsed the draft anti-terrorism law maintaining the death penalty for certain crimes tagged as terror acts. In a rare case concerning such an important law, the lawmakers debated and approved the bill in just one day, through morning and evening meetings. According to the draft bill, those who commit terrorist crimes that result in the death of innocent people, partial or total damage of facilities and buildings, and entail the use of explosives, poisons, chemical, biochemical or radioactive materials, face the death sentence. Any attempt on the life of the King, the Queen or Crown Prince, or any act that entails armed insurgency against legitimate authorities is listed as a terrorist crime.
Minister of Interior Hussein Majali said the draft bill considers as terrorist crime only hostile actions against legitimate authorities, “but not those against illegitimate authorities.” His remarks came in response to several MPs’ remarks on excluding actions of resistance against Israeli authorities from this bill. “The [Israeli] occupation is not a legitimate authority,” hence resisting it is not considered an act of terrorism, Majali explained.
According to official data, 41 people were executed in the Country since the beginning of 2000, all of whom were convicted of murder, terrorism or sexual assault charges. At least seven executions were carried out in 2003, and fourteen people were known to have been put to death in 2002. At least one execution took place in 2004. At least 15 people were put to death in 2005, according to a Jordanian police sources.
On 21 December 2014, eight years after Jordan suspended its death penalty, eleven death-row inmates convicted in different murder cases were executed by hanging, the Interior Ministry announced. The men were executed at dawn in the Swaqa corrections and rehabilitation center, a prison some 70 kilometres from Amman, the capital, Interior Ministry spokesman Ziyad Zoobi was quoted as saying by the official Petra news agency. Authorities said the men were all Jordanians convicted of murder charges in 2005 and 2006. A source in the prison system said the men were mostly in their 40s. "Some of the prisoners asked to have their final words passed on to their families, others asked only to smoke a cigarette," the source said.
Before the December 2014 executions, the last one had taken place in March 2006, when a 41-year-old blacksmith, convicted of killing his wife and seven-month-old child, was hanged at Swaqa prison. Since then, 122 people have been sentenced to death and remain in prison for various offences, including murder, rape of minors and spying, but their sentences have not been carried out.
At the beginning of 2014, several Jordanian lawmakers called for unfreezing the implementation of capital punishment – suspended by King Abdullah II of Jordan in 2006 – in order to curb the recent rise in crime rates.
On 8 November 2014, Interior Minister Hussein Majali said the Cabinet had formed a committee to examine whether or not to reinstate executions in Jordan. He suggested that the death penalty freeze might end, saying there was a “major debate” in Jordan on the death penalty and that “the public believes that the rise in crime has been the result of the non-application” of capital punishment.
At least 13 death sentences were imposed in 2013, according to Penal Reform International (PRI) that reported Correctional and Rehabilitation Centers data. According to government information, five death sentences were imposed, all on men, during 2014. Three were Jordanian nationals, the fourth was a Syrian national and the fifth was a Palestinian national. At least 113 people were under sentence of death in Jordan at the end of the year. On 23 December 2014, an opinion poll was released showing that more than two-thirds of Jordanians support capital punishment. The survey, carried out between 23 November and 5 December by the Centre for Strategic Studies (CSS) at the University of Jordan, showed that 81 per cent of Jordanians supported the death penalty and 17 per cent said they opposed it. The survey polled 1,200 Jordanians over 18 and a smaller group of 700 “opinion leaders” such as political figures, academics and journalists. According to the survey, 80 per cent of opinion leaders also said they supported capital punishment, while 18 per cent were against it. Of those who oppose the penalty, 28 per cent of the national sample and 18 per cent of the opinion leaders said they were against it because they considered execution “inhumane, while life and death are in the hands of God”. Meanwhile, 22 per cent of the national sample who opposed it and 21 per cent of the opinion leaders said their rejection of the death penalty was over fears that some of those convicted and executed may in fact be not guilty. The opinion poll also gauged opinions on alternative penalties and the option of replacing execution with life imprisonment. Results showed that the vast majority was against this – 74 per cent of the national sample and 79 per cent of the opinion leaders – said they were against alternative punishment, including life imprisonment.
On 24 October 2013, Jordan was reviewed under the Universal Periodic Review of the UN Human Rights Council. The recommendations to establish an official moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty and acceding to the Second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights did not enjoy the support of Jordan.
On 18 December 2014, Jordan abstained on the Resolution on a Moratorium on the use of the Death Penalty at the UN General Assembly. Also on 20 December 2012 Jordan had abstained.