Since the demise of strongman Saddam Hussein, it is fair to say that Iraq’s judicial system has undergone significant changes.

At first, says a new report from the Iraq Watch Group of the Middle East Centre of the London School of Economics (LSE), the reforms appeared to create a more independent judiciary.

However, the truth quickly emerged that it has instead become increasingly centralized and politicized.

The Iraq Watch Group says that judicial power in Iraq has increasingly been concentrated within the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) and the Federal Supreme Court (FSC), with new laws granting unchecked control to SJC president Faiq Zaidan.

Zaidan uses his power to serve personal interests and, often, those of the nation’s political elites — No case shows the depth of the politicization more than the ongoing, now 11-year battle between Kurdish-American businesswoman Sara Hamid Saleem Miran and the Iraqi judiciary — most notably, against Faiq Zidan and his minions.

Not only was Saleem defrauded by her business partners – they had her kidnapped (until her miraculous escape) — and they continue to this day to use their political connections to seize her assets and demonize her.

Iraq’s Iranian-backed power structure was deeply offended that a (well-qualified) Kurdish woman was overseeing renovations at the historic Basra International Hotel. Yet, she had earned the right.

In 2005, Saleem became chief of engineering for a property development firm co-owned by Nechirvan Barzani, Kurdistan’s then prime minister. After serving as project manager for a huge shopping mall development, she got the hotel renovation job –........

© Blitz