Ammendments to the Jordanian Societies law proposed by Jordanian NGOs

Amendments should be made to the Society Law of 2008

The following proposals could be the most important themes from the viewpoint of the societies, which we view necessary to take them into account when amending the Society Law of 2008. These proposals require full review for the law to ensure its consistency and harmony with the general structure of the text so as to reach a modern law that governs civil society organizations according to the international criteria of human rights to which Jordan has committed.

First: Registration

General Principles

To approve a single national and independent authority to organize registration of societies and following up its activities.
Registration is considered made by deposit or entry and is not restricted to the approval of any other agency.

Provisions proposed to be amended:

- To amend the provisions of the law and to substitute them with the text “to create a national register of societies (organizations), an independent national authority, managed by a board to be formed by a decision by the Council of Ministers, chaired by the Minister of Social Development and the membership of representatives from the concerned official departments and representatives from organizations. The Council of Ministers by a proposal of the Board will appoint a controller for the register. The registration arrangement into the register is made according to category and type of an organization. The register will have executive secretary and will have the following tasks:

1. Registration and Declaration: The register will be the only official reference responsible for registering and declaring all civil society organizations which wish to be registered in the kingdom according to the provisions of registration and declaration set forth in this law.
2. Monitoring: The Register Department is responsible for the controlling the activities of the civil society organizations in terms of the following:

- Adhere to requirements of registration and declaration stated in this law;
- Adhere to provision of financial and administrative reports and others such as notices and notification set forth in this law and in its internal statute deposited with the register authority.
- Rights of membership;
- Violations of laws and regulations;

3. Support: The register will be responsible for coordination and provision of all cash, in-kind, technical support to civil society organizations based on just distribution, taking into account the efficiency of organization performance and its scope of activity and its nature.
4. Dispute settlement: Looking into complaints and disputes submitted by the members of societies against its administration and these raised by an organization against another, without affecting the rights of litigation.

- To substitute the articles related to the provisions of registration and monitoring over registration and activities of societies with the following provisions:

1. Founders of a society should submit a registration application to the Register Controller using the applied form, signed by seven of founders, and attached with the minutes of foundation meeting and three copies of the basic statute of the society, signed by all founding members. The statute should include, in addition to the added data to be agreed by the founders, the following:

a. The name of a society, its postal address, main headquarter, and addresses;
b. A mandated name on behalf of founders by a written authorization;
c. The objectives of a organization and its ends;
d. The potential resources of a society;
e. The conditions of membership and its types and reasons of its expiry and value of subscriptions;
f. The conditions members of the Board should meet and how to be elected and their terms;
g. The conditions of amendments to the organization’s basic statute and how to be merged or unified;
h. The conditions to hold general assemblies and their validity and quorum of holding;
i. Rules of the organization and the way of disposing the funds of a society at the time of dissolution;
j. To explicitly express that the organization’s activities are not aiming at achieving profits or distributing any surplus to the founders or members during the activity of the organization or at its bankruptcy;
k. To explicitly express that the decision of amending the basic statute or changing an auditor or dissolution or bankruptcy of the organization can only be made by the approval of 75% of the organization’s members; and to distribute the funds of the organization upon dissolution or liquidation to other organizations or to be devolved to the Organization Support Fund.
l. The basic statute should include adherence to the rules of the good governance, such as transparency and avoidance of conflicting interests;
m. The number of the Administrative Board members and method of their election and its powers and meeting cycle and legal quorum, and the mechanism of its decision-taking and method of the society management if it is possible for the society to hold meetings for any reason.
n. Registration application and its attachment should be submitted to the Register Office directly or through post or email, and to receive a written receipt that shows the date of application receipt and its attachments;
o. The Register Controller is to register an organization according to category and type and is to issue a registration certificate within a month from entry and expiry term stated in the paragraph 3/O, and the society has the right to contest before the higher justice court.
p. The Register Controller should accept any application for registration and declaration, and should not suspend them for the approval of any other agency.
q. The Register Controller has the right to assign founders or their representatives to complete the short documents in registration application and he can give them a period of not more than two weeks.

2. Any organization is considered to be legally registered after the elapse of one month from application submission date, unless the register controller requires any further information from the organization within ten days from the date of application. Then the rest of the month starts to be calculated from the submission date of required data.
3. In all events, an organization is considered to be registered and declared legally after the elapse of one month from the application submission, and it can practice its activities according to the rules, unless the register controller issues a written and justified decision to reject registration.
4. The Register controller has to justify his decisions related the reason of not registering and declaring the society. And his decision should be contested before the higher justice court within sixty days from the date of official decision notification to the applicant.
5. The Register controller can contest before the court for registering any non-government organization at any time if it violated the provisions of this law or its basic statute submitted to the register. This could be made after giving it a written warning for sixty days to remove or stop the violation.
6. Contest can be stopped only by a decisive decision from the related government to cross it out from the register.

Second: Freedom of Organization activities:

General Principles:

- The society is free to do all essential activities to serve a range of human rights such as freedom of association, belief, opinion, and expression, and the right to live in suitable living condition and the right of participation in managing the general affairs…

The provisions suggested to be amended:

To explicitly express that the decisions of the ordinary or non-ordinary general assemblies and the those of the Board and election of members of the Board will be effective once issued as support to the law and basic statute of the society, and to restricted to the approval of any other official agency.
The society is to adhere to the principles of good governance, including accountability, auditing and transparency; The violation of the society to this obligation will be accountable, and a cause to dissolve the society.

Third: Financing:

General Principles:

As a main principle: It is allowed to accept financing from any source without receiving any a prior permission from any agency. And it is allowed to set conditions and provisions to control financing that affects the interests of the society and the state and rights of others.

The provisions proposed to be amended:

Article (12) Funding sources of organizations:

The organization has the right to depend on one or more of the following funding sources:

Contributions and donations of members;
Endowments, deposits, and grants and gifts;
Revenues of its projects;
Support which it receives from the Society Support Fund.

Article ( )

The society has the right to ask for and receive loans, grants, cash, in-kind, technical aids that enable it do its activities and achieve its objectives from any of the following agencies:

(a):

1. Any ministry or official department concerned with the objectives of the society and its scope of activity;
2. Individuals, companies, commercial and service corporations working the in the kingdom.
3. Any international societies, organizations and entities related to the objectives of the society;
4. Any national or foreign agency, provided that support should not be conditional or its condition is restricted to that the organization should achieve its objectives as set in the approved basic statute to be declared according to the provisions of this law.
5. Any specialized lending foundations.

(b) In addition to the above, registered societies have the right ,according to the provisions of this law, to accept donations and contributions or gifts or aids from non-Jordanian sources according to the following conditions:

Sources of these funds should be legitimate and do not violate the public order and morals;
Should not be collected from criminal returns;
The conditions of the funding agency should not contradict the provisions of this law and the basic statute of the society;
The term and method of its expenses should be determined;

The administration of society should notify the Register Controller in writing about the amount, source and method of receiving these donations within two weeks from the date of the approval of the financer to provide this funding;
The Register Controller has the right to ban the society receive any funding that contradicts the conditions of the Para. B of this Article within ten days from the date of notice; and at all events the government has the right to contest the decision of the controller with the higher justice court.

If the society has received any funding in violation of the provisions of this article, the Register Controller has the right to freeze these funds and transfer them to the Societies Support Fund. The society has the right to prove that this funding does not violate the provisions of the paragraph b, and to demand retrieve this funding. If the Controller has insisted upon his decision, the society has the right to contest this decision within sixty days from the date of the society submitting a written application to recover the amount.

Fourth: Judiciary Controlling:

General Principles:

It is allowed to dissolve or suspend societies or to take any action that restricts their activities or issue a penalty against it only by a judiciary decision and under the provisions of the law.

The provisions to be amended:

The decisions of the Register Controller are subject to the controlling of the High Justice Court for registration and rejection of the society and its dissolution for any reason already stated in this law. Imposing penalties for violating the law provisions will be made the Reconciliation Court which falls into the society headquarter.

Five: Disputes Settlement:

The Board approves, based on the suggestion of the Register Controller, a committee or more. Each consists of three members, one at least should be legal, to be responsible for looking into complaints and disputes raised by the members of societies against its administration and these submitted by organization against other. This should not affect the rights of litigation given to the opponents. The board determines by a special regulation the duties of this committee/committee, and scope of its work, and rules that should be observed, limits of commitments to its decisions, and qualifications of its members and their rights and duties.

Six:

Society Support Fund:

It is created by a special system within the register scope and is run by the register controller with the assistance of four Board members. Its revenues consists of the following resources:

1. Allocations which are earmarked to the Fund from public revenues;
2. Grants, donations, gifts which citizens provide, and organizations enlisted in the register.
3. Grants, gifts and donations provided by non-Jordanian persons and entities.
4. Fees and fines which are levied according to provisions of the law and regulations.
5. The system will determine aspects of spending for Fund’s money, and criteria of support to organizations;
6. The register is responsible for coordination and providing forms of cash and in-kind and technical support to the civil society organizations, based on the principle of just distribution taking into the account the efficiency of organization performance and its work scope and its quality.

Seven: Penalties:

General Principles:

The goal of penalty is to protect the right of assembly;
Not to expand in imposing penalties for violating the law provisions;
Provisions stated in penalties law and other existing penal legislations are sufficient;

The provisions to be amended:

Dissolution penalty:

a. The controller has the right to turn to the court to dissolve the society and liquidate its assets at any of the two cases:

If it has not embarked its activities or if stopped to practice them for one full year, though it has been notified to necessarily correct its situation through a 3-month written notice.
if it has not observed the rules of good governance in its internal statute and exercising its activities.

b. The other penal penalties:

Everybody who takes over the administration of the society and did disburse its financial resources over things incompatible with its objectives will be punished by a fine of five hundred to five thousand dinars, and will be obliged to pay the amount he has already dispersed.

- Anybody who receives cash support or funding or in-kind in contrary to the provisions of the law, will be punished by a fine not less than five hundred dinars and not more two thousand dinars.
- The chairman of the administrative board and/or the member assigned to document and keep records will be punished by a fine not less than one hundred dinars and not more than two hundred dinars, for mistakes raised due to omission or negligence to his duties.
- Anybody who commits a violation as a result of not adhering to terms and period necessary for registration will be punished by a fine of a single dinar for each delayed day.
- Anybody who commits an action that is considered as mismanagement or abuse or restriction to rights of membership will be punished by a fine of one hundred to five hundred,
- Anybody who violates provisions of this law will be fined unless there is a provision of a fine of one hundred dinars to one thousand.

Eighth: Incentives and facilities

Civil society organizations are exempted from taxes, fees, sales taxes. All amounts which are donated to registered organizations according to the applicable rules will be reduced from their deductible income of the donor, once submitting an official receipt from the organization for the value of donation.

Ninth: Concluding provisions:

- To explicitly express that registered organizations according to the provisions of the law No. 33 of 1966 are considered legally registered according to the provisions of the new law and no need for a provision requiring correcting its situations.
- Define articles of other laws which should be cancelled under this law and should elaborate the phrase of “as much as it contradicts the provisions of the law”