One of the leaders of our men of thought and of the judiciary. President of the Court of Cassation and professor of "Islamic Sociology" at the Institute of Oriental Letters of Saint Joseph University. Here he analyzes the Eastern woman's position with respect to the judiciary.

1 - Is woman, especially in the East, fit to practice the profession of judging? 2 -

Does the present state of legis-lation permit woman to assume the judgeship? 3 - What are the matters in which a woman judge could serve better than a man?

In the ancient East the judiciary branched off from religion, for religion alone was the source of legislation. Hence the guardian of religion either took charge of judging himself or entrusted it to the chief priest. For this reason, too, woman's share in the judiciary was no better than her share in the performance of religious rites. All these matters were, by custom, no business of women.

After the Islamic conquest the reality did not change much. What changed was in proportion to the difference imposed by the developments of time. The Caliph, as deputy of the Lawgiver in the call to religion, held the first right to assume the judge-ship. History establishes that the first caliphs sat in judgment themselves, then instituted judges to whom they delegated the giving of rulings. It is not explic-itly known that women were ever entrusted with judicial functions. But it is known that some of them sat to give legal opinions — and the giving of opinions, which is the guidance and instruction of the people in religious law, was not binding; those women who attained it attained it by their learning, and that is something that cannot be bound by any special system.

In the modern East many matters of legislation have been detached from the appurtenances of religion, and the judiciary has become a power standing on its own, separate from the other powers. On this basis it may

be said, at least in principle, that the traditional impediments which stood between woman and the judiciary have disappeared. Yet traditions have, regrettably, entered into legislation: what had been a prohibition by custom became an exclusion by legal text, since the law organizing the courts in the East — modern Turkey excepted — reserved the judgeship to men alone. Here it is worth saying that the exclusion of women from the judiciary was not intended in itself, but was a natural consequence of woman's being barred from the enjoyment of her full political rights. It must also be said that the Eastern laws, ancient and modern, had they remained purely Eastern, would have done woman no harm at all. Nor is it difficult to prove that Islamic law — which alone held sway over the lands of the East for long ages — contains nothing in its principles that would bring woman to such a result of constriction. In it woman's rights are complete, and the provisions concerning her are subject, before all others, to the rule that rulings change with the changing of times. But instead of its development being progressive and ascending, the opposite occurred, and the East

settled into a standing reaction; the cause of this was the East's looking toward models that did not arise in its own lands. It was as if, through its eager adoption of Western laws — all of which turn woman backward — woman in our lands was wronged.

This may seem strange, but the texts are within reach of every hand; and what the Western woman obtained before the Eastern one, in the enjoyment of political rights, came only after battles she waged in the streets and the forums, by speech, by writing, and by demonstrations, thereby removing from before her the barriers that obstructed her advancement.