International Review of Law - Volume 2013, Issue 4

Domestic violence, a serious problem around the world, remains a hidden concern among the Islamic Gulf States. Yet signs indicate the situation is changing. A team of American lawyers and professors, responding to student initiative and the Qatari development strategy, recently initiated Qatar's first law school clinic, focusing exclusively on domestic violence. By highlighting the students' experience, this article outlines the issues involved and the problems that were encountered, and resolved, during the development of this clinic. The students first studied the issue of domestic violence, then made presentations to the larger community to raise awareness of the topic. Subsequent to a review of international law, the Qatari criminal code and model domestic violence statutes from other jurisdictions, the students drafted legislation designed to criminalize domestic violence in Qatar. Finally, they developed what they called An Action Plan to Stop Domestic Violence in Qatar. This article also explores how the clinic's work was informed by the sex-segregated educational environment, by Islamic culture at large, and by feminist and traditional interpretations of the Qur'an. The authors offer reflections on the lessons they learned and propose suggestions about how such pedagogy might proceed in future.

In a recent judgment by the South African Supreme Court of Appeal, Daffy v. Daffy, (659/2011) [2012] ZASCA 149; [28 September 2012] 4 All SA 607 (SCA); 2013 (1) SACR 42 (SCA) the question of what exactly constitutes a domestic relationship for the purposes of domestic violence came under scrutiny. This article will provide a short overview of the Daffy case and the South African Domestic Violence Act 116 of 1998. The bounds and limits of intra-family violence, domestic violence and what constitutes a domestic relationship in terms of South African law will be considered. While this article does not express an opinion on whether this particular case of sibling conflict and alleged violence amounted to domestic violence as set out in the South African Domestic Violence Act, it does question the Supreme Court of Appeal's constricted interpretation of these concepts and place it within the broader realm of developments on domestic violence and research on family violence. The primary aim of this article is to challenge preconceived and constricted views of what domestic violence entails and who it involves. It will provide the reader with pertinent questions that will, hopefully, instigate further debate about the conceptual structure and scope of domestic violence.

This article uses the Pakistani Acid Control and Acid Crime Prevention Act of 2010 (Act of 2010) as an example to discuss the use of ad hoc legislation on issues of violence against women in Pakistan. From 2008 to 2011, the Aurat Foundation reported that 158 acid attacks occurred in Pakistan. While one remedy for the victims of acid attacks may be to see their attackers punished, a lasting remedy would be to ensure this type of horrific attack does not happen to anyone else. This article examines the effect of the Act of 2010 on addressing acid attacks as well as its place in the effort to curb violence against women in Pakistan. The danger of legislation in response to specific crime, such as the Act of 2010, is that even if the legislation's goal of prevention is realized, it serves only a small percentage of victims of violence against women by addressing a single type of attack. Since ad hoc legislation may lack sufficient development or comprehensiveness to handle the issue, the legislation can fail those it is intended to serve, thereby losing an opportunity to address problems that contribute to violence against women overall. This article argues that, despite its good intentions and limited success, the Act of 2010 falls short of its preventative goal by relying on deterrence, which does not address the range of factors that feed violence against women and which also creates barriers for women who try to pursue justice. Thus, the Act of 2010 falls short of adequately protecting victims of acid attacks and, perhaps more important, misses the chance to effectuate broad-based systemic change that would benefit all women. Therefore, a more comprehensive bill, tailored with barriers to addressing violence against women in mind, should be passed.

Women in Nigeria are reluctant to report cases of domestic violence to the police. This study examines the magnitude of domestic violence in Nigeria. It also examines respondents' levels of education, culture, religion, and tradition vis-à-vis unreported cases of domestic violence in two heterogeneous communities in Nigeria. This study surmises that the level of domestic violence could be reduced if women were given social support to report incidences of domestic violence to the police. Quantitative method of data collection was employed in this study. The respondents were drawn from women in Victoria Island, Lagos and Akure, Ondo State. Four hundred and sixty-two surveys were analyzed, 284 from Victoria Island, and 178 from Akure. The results show that culture, attitudes of police, and absence of social support contribute to the unwillingness of women to report cases of domestic violence. This paper concludes that police officers need to be educated on how to properly handle domestic violence cases.

In the recent decades as a result of feminist efforts, significant progress in addressing the issue of domestic violence on the international scene, as well as, on the national level have been made. However, there are still numerous examples of the legal systems routinely failing women victims of domestic violence. In the Republic of Macedonia the issue of domestic violence emerged on the national agenda in the 1994, and ever since, many projects and actions on government level, as well as, in the non-governmental sector have been initiated. Access to justice as a fundamental right to victims of domestic violence has started to develop in the country. Laws are now enacted and procedures have been changed to better suit victims of domestic violence. Action Plans have been developed, and orders of protection are now available. Police officers have been trained on appropriate responses to domestic violence calls; judges have been trained on the dynamics of domestic violence; and recently, prosecutors and lawyers are more likely to take up cases of domestic violence and to consider it relevant to their prosecution or defense. However, even though these efforts have been rather successful in terms of policy-making and legal framework, victims of domestic violence still face problems throughout the legal system. The problems that hinder the effective access to justice of the victims are concentrated in these areas: the police inaction in submitting a criminal charge to the prosecution office; the prosecution's office dropping the case for lack of evidence or under-qualification of the deed; untimely action of the court in security protection measures issuance demanded by victims; lack of implementation of already issued temporary protection orders, and under-sentencing the perpetrators. In this article, these problems will be explored through analyses: first of the legal system of R. Macedonia regarding domestic violence, based on its responsibility by being a party to binding international legal treaties treating violence against women in generalis, and domestic violence in concreto; and second, through identification of the situation regarding domestic violence and the problems of victims of domestic violence dealing with the justice system by examining specific cases.

I greatly appreciate the opportunity to serve as the guest editor of this special issue on domestic violence. Since its inception in 2012, the International Review of Law under the stewardship of Dr. Jon Truby of the College of Law at Qatar University has featured articles on a range of legal issues with global and regional significance. The vision of His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, former Emir of the State of Qatar, provided the impetus for the creation of this bilingual, open access journal. The ongoing support and leadership of the current Emir, His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, has allowed the International Review of Law to flourish.