The Protection from Domestic Violence Law in Jordan: Settlement, Protection Orders and Criminal Prosecution
In domestic violence files in Jordan, the most serious decisions are made before the file reaches a court: what is said in the first record at the Family Protection Department, and what is signed at the settlement session, may decide the fate of the criminal file and carry over into later divorce and custody cases. The Protection from Domestic Violence Law No. 15 of 2017 regulates these files alongside Penal Code No. 16 of 1960 and its amendments: it allows settlement in misdemeanors and protection orders, and it leaves felonies in the hands of the Public Prosecutor. Because the choice between these routes is usually settled in the first days, whether the person in the file is an aggrieved person seeking protection or a family member against whom the complaint was made, a specialist lawyer's review of the facts before any statement or signature is what protects that person's position in the file.
1. What the Law Treats as Domestic Violence, and Whom It Covers
Domestic violence under Jordanian law, according to Article 2 of the Protection from Domestic Violence Law, is the crimes against persons committed by a family member against any member of the family. The law takes acts already criminalized in the Penal Code, such as assault and threats, and gives them a special framework when both parties belong to one family: a specialized body that receives the complaint, the Family Protection Department in the Public Security Directorate; a settlement route for misdemeanors; protection orders; and full confidentiality of proceedings.
Article 3 sets out the family members the law covers:
- The husband and the wife.
- Blood relatives up to the third degree.
- Relatives by marriage up to the second degree.
- Blood relatives of the fourth degree, and relatives by marriage of the third and fourth degrees, provided they reside in the family home.
- A child in the custody of a natural person or a foster family in accordance with the legislation in force.
The family home, as the law defines it, is the place where the family members usually reside, and this condition has a practical effect: a fourth-degree relative falls within the law only if he or she lives in the same home. Working out the degree of kinship, and proving residence where it is disputed, are among the first points the lawyer examines, because if the relationship falls outside the law, the incident is treated like any other crime, without the settlement route or protection orders.
Opening the file does not always depend on a complaint by the aggrieved person. Article 4 requires providers of health, educational or social services in the public and private sectors to report any case of domestic violence against a person who lacks legal capacity or has diminished legal capacity, such as a child, as soon as they learn of it. Where the aggrieved person has full legal capacity and the act is a misdemeanor, the report is made with that person's consent. Anyone who breaches the reporting duty is punished by imprisonment for not more than one week or a fine of not more than fifty Jordanian dinars (JOD), or both penalties, and the identity of those who make reports may not be disclosed unless judicial proceedings require it. This means a file may be opened on a report from a hospital or a school without anyone in the family deciding to file a complaint, and the two parties then find themselves in proceedings whose timing they did not choose.
2. Misdemeanor or Felony: The Classification That Sets the Course of the File
The law divides domestic violence files according to the seriousness of the act. Article 7(a) gives the Family Protection Department, notwithstanding anything in any other legislation, the power to settle the dispute in misdemeanors, provided the two parties or their legal representatives consent to the settlement and attend its sessions. If the act is a felony, Article 7(b) bars the Department from conducting a settlement and requires it to refer the file to the competent Public Prosecutor.
Whether an act is a misdemeanor or a felony is determined by the provisions of the Penal Code. In assault, for example, Article 334 punishes an act that caused no illness or incapacity for work, or caused incapacity lasting not more than twenty days, with imprisonment for not more than one year or a fine of not more than one hundred dinars, or both penalties, and the case is prosecuted only on the aggrieved person's complaint. If the act leads to the loss of an organ, the disabling of one of the senses or a permanent disability, the act is a felony covered by Article 335, and the file then falls outside the scope of settlement. The article Assault Causing Bodily Harm under the Jordanian Penal Code sets out this gradation in detail.
The classification is determined by the medical report, the period of incapacity it establishes and the means of the assault, and it may change with a later medical report. Whether the file is open to settlement at all varies with the classification it ends up with, which is itself a legal point that merits consultation before agreeing to any route.
3. Settlement before the Family Protection Department and Its Limits
Settlement under this law is a formal procedure with records and a judicial decision: the Department summons the parties, holds the settlement session and takes the family's situation and circumstances into account, then records the signed settlement and prepares a report with a social study attached, prepared by the social and psychological specialist (Article 8). The file is then referred to the competent court whether or not a settlement was reached, and the court's decision ratifying the settlement is final (Article 9). The settlement judge may not, on pain of nullity, hear the merits of a dispute that was referred to him for ratification of its settlement (Article 13).
Based on the social and psychological specialist's report, the court may include in the ratification decision measures against the perpetrator of the violence, set out in Article 11:
- Community service for not more than forty working hours, with the parties' consent.
- A ban on visiting any place or premises for not more than six months.
- Enrolling the parties to the dispute in psychological or social rehabilitation programs or sessions for not more than six months.
Anyone who fails to carry out any of these measures, wholly or partly, is punished by imprisonment for not more than three months (Article 11(b)), and the Family Protection Department follows up on implementation and reports to the court that ratified the settlement (Article 14).
The limits of the settlement are drawn in the text itself: it is confined to the criminal act and the complaint relating to it (Article 7(a)), and it does not by itself extend to maintenance (nafaqa), the dower (mahr), custody (hadana) or housing, which are rights pursued before the Sharia Court. That is why the lawyer reads the terms of the settlement from two angles: what they end in the criminal file, and what in them may later be cited in a personal status dispute. Do not sign a settlement record before a specialist lawyer has reviewed its wording, because an agreement that seems to end the dispute may later be read in a way that was never intended.
4. The Protection Order and the Penalty for Violating It
The competent court issues a protection order when it is satisfied that the aggrieved person or any family member needs protection, at the request of either of them, and in the absence or presence of the perpetrator of the violence (Article 16). The order may require the perpetrator to:
- Not interfere with the aggrieved person or any family member, or incite others to interfere with them.
- Not approach the place where the aggrieved person or any family member resides.
- Not damage the personal property of the aggrieved person or any family member.
- Allow the aggrieved person or any family member, or a person either of them authorizes, to enter the family home in the presence of a member of the Family Protection Department to take his or her personal property, under a record of its receipt.
- Comply with any other order the court considers to provide effective protection for the aggrieved person or for anyone who may be exposed to harm because of their relationship with that person.
The penalty for violating the order is graded in Article 17: violating the protection order or any of its conditions is punished by imprisonment for not more than one month or a fine of not more than one hundred dinars, or both penalties. If the violation is accompanied by the use of violence against any of the persons the order covers, the penalty becomes imprisonment for not more than three months or a fine of not more than two hundred dinars, or both, without prejudice to any more severe penalty provided in another law. If the violation is repeated more than twice, the penalty is imprisonment for not less than three months and a fine of not less than one hundred dinars.
The effectiveness of the order depends on its scope: the persons it covers, the places that may not be approached, and the additional terms a particular case calls for. These are elements the lawyer sets in light of the facts of the file, just as the other party's lawyer studies precisely the limits of what the order requires of his client, because any breach of them opens a new file.
Practical note: Violating a protection order is an offense separate from the original incident; it is prosecuted even if the first file ended in a settlement, and its penalty rises with repetition. The order may also be issued in the absence of the person it is issued against, and the provisions of the law are subject to amendment, so the lawyer reviews the order as actually issued and the version of the law in force before building any position on it, whether for the person the order protects or the person it is issued against. This is a matter that merits a review of the file or consulting a specialist lawyer.
5. Comparing the Routes in a Domestic Violence File
The following table brings together the routes the Protection from Domestic Violence Law provides alongside the Penal Code:
| Route | When it is available | Competent authority | Legal basis | Effect and penalty |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Settlement | In misdemeanors only, with the consent of the two parties or their representatives | The Family Protection Department, then ratification by the competent court | Articles 7, 8 and 9 | A final ratification decision that ends the complaint relating to the act, and does not extend to personal status rights |
| Settlement measures | Within the ratification decision, based on the social and psychological specialist's report | The competent court | Article 11 | Community service for not more than forty hours, or a ban on visiting a place or rehabilitation for not more than six months; failure to comply is punished by imprisonment for not more than three months |
| Protection order | When the court is satisfied that protection is needed, at the request of the aggrieved person or a family member | The competent court, in the presence or absence of the perpetrator of the violence | Articles 16 and 17 | Violation: imprisonment for not more than one month or a fine of not more than one hundred dinars; with violence: imprisonment for not more than three months or a fine of not more than two hundred dinars; repetition more than twice: imprisonment for not less than three months and a fine of not less than one hundred dinars |
| Trial of a misdemeanor | If no settlement is reached, or it is rejected or not ratified | The competent court | Article 15(b) and the provisions of the Penal Code | The penalty prescribed for the misdemeanor, such as Article 334 for assault whose incapacity does not exceed twenty days |
| Prosecution of a felony | If the act is a felony, with no settlement | The Public Prosecutor, then the court | Article 7(b) and the provisions of the Penal Code | The penalty prescribed for the felony in the Penal Code, such as the cases covered by Article 335 |
The table shows that no route replaces another: a protection order may be issued while a settlement is under way or a prosecution is pending. Which route suits a particular file is something the lawyer assesses from the facts and the medical reports in each file.
6. The File from the Side of the Family Member Complained Against
The law does not treat every family dispute as violence, since the definition is limited to crimes against persons. Among the points the lawyer examines in the file of a father or mother who is complained against is what Article 62 of the Penal Code permits: forms of discipline that parents impose on their children in a way that causes them no harm or injury and in accordance with what general custom allows. This permission is bound by two conditions, and anything beyond them returns to the scope of criminal liability; that assessment is settled by the facts and the medical reports.
As for the husband or relative complained against, consenting to the settlement or refusing it is a decision with consequences. The settlement ends the complaint with a final decision, but it may come with measures whose non-performance is punishable, and refusing it means the misdemeanor is referred to the court. In misdemeanors where prosecution depends on a complaint, such as assault under Article 334, the complainant may withdraw the complaint until the judgment becomes final, and the public-right action (the State's right to prosecute) then lapses. In the more serious forms, the general rule is that the public right does not lapse by the aggrieved person's waiver, and the effect of the waiver remains confined to his or her private right (the victim's personal claim).
All proceedings and information relating to domestic violence cases heard before any body, including the courts, are fully confidential (Article 18). This confidentiality protects both parties, but the first statement in the record is often the basis of the classification on which the whole file is built. Do not give any detailed statement before a lawyer is present who knows the limits of what needs to be said.
7. The Effect of a Domestic Violence File on Divorce and Custody Cases
A domestic violence file often runs alongside another file before the Sharia Court. Facts of wrongdoing between the spouses may form the basis of a case for separation for discord and dispute (shiqaq) regulated by Article 126 of Personal Status Law No. 15 of 2019, where the financial effect of the separation depends on the share of wrongdoing the two arbitrators (hakamayn) arrive at. Article 5 of the Protection from Domestic Violence Law allows a court competent in personal status matters, if it finds while hearing a case that there is a case of domestic violence involving persons who lack legal capacity or have diminished legal capacity, to provide the Family Protection Department with a copy of the case file.
The two files affect each other, and what is established in one may be brought up in the other. That is why the lawyer looks at the criminal file and the Sharia file together before any step in either: which route is taken first, what is recorded in the report, and how the settlement is worded so that it is not understood as a waiver of a right in the discord case. The article Separation for Discord and Dispute explains the arbitrators' role in apportioning the wrongdoing and its effect on the wife's rights.
8. Frequently Asked Questions
What is meant by domestic violence under Jordanian law?
It is the crimes against persons committed by a family member against any member of the family, according to Article 2 of the Protection from Domestic Violence Law No. 15 of 2017. The acts themselves are criminalized in the Penal Code, and the special law adds settlement, protection orders and confidentiality to them.
Who are the family members covered by the Protection from Domestic Violence Law?
The spouses, blood relatives up to the third degree, relatives by marriage up to the second degree, more distant relatives within the fourth degree provided they reside in the family home, and a child in the custody of a natural person or a foster family (Article 3).
Can a domestic violence case be settled?
Settlement before the Family Protection Department is allowed in misdemeanors only, with the consent of the two parties or their legal representatives, and it is subject to ratification by the competent court (Articles 7 to 9). Felonies are referred to the Public Prosecutor and cannot be settled.
What is the penalty for violating a protection order in Jordan?
Imprisonment for not more than one month or a fine of not more than one hundred dinars, or both; it becomes imprisonment for not more than three months or a fine of not more than two hundred dinars, or both, if the violation is accompanied by the use of violence. If the violation is repeated more than twice, the penalty is imprisonment for not less than three months and a fine of not less than one hundred dinars (Article 17).
Is a doctor or teacher required to report domestic violence?
Yes, if the violence is against a person who lacks legal capacity or has diminished legal capacity. If the aggrieved person has full legal capacity and the act is a misdemeanor, the report is made with that person's consent (Article 4). The identity of the person who makes the report is not disclosed unless judicial proceedings require it.
Do domestic violence cases remain confidential?
Yes, proceedings and information relating to domestic violence cases before any body, including the courts, are fully confidential (Article 18).
Does a domestic violence file affect a divorce or custody case?
It may. Facts of wrongdoing between the spouses may form the basis of a case for separation for discord and dispute, and the Sharia Court may provide the Family Protection Department with a copy of the case file if it finds violence involving persons who lack legal capacity or have diminished legal capacity (Article 5). How far this effect reaches in a particular file is something the lawyer assesses after reviewing both files.
Legal Consultation
Domestic violence files are among the most delicate and sensitive family cases: for the aggrieved person, there is personal safety and a need for protection that a hasty settlement or a narrowly drawn protection order can weaken, and for the family member complained against, there is a criminal classification that may move the file from a misdemeanor open to settlement to a felony the law refers to the Public Prosecutor. What is said in the first record or signed at the settlement session is hard to remedy later, and its effect often extends to divorce and custody files. For a consultation with a lawyer specializing in family and domestic violence cases, or to read how this file connects with the rules on the public right and the private right under Jordanian law and criminal threats under the Jordanian Penal Code, you can contact Alabwini Law Firm & Legal Consultancy.
