CAIRO, August 28 (IslamOnline.net) - Egypt’s controversial Family Court is set to become effective and look into personal status cases in October amid reservations at its role in increasing divorces and giving emergence to new concepts like civil marriage contracts.

Some four thousand judges, 810 administrative prosecutors along with 1134 socialists and psychologists are ready to quickly settle family disputes, Egyptian Justice Minister Mahmmoud Abulil has said.

The three-member court, including a female judge, will also have a psychologist and a socialist to help get the couple reverse the divorce decision and protect the matrimonial bond.

All personal status cases will be under the jurisdiction of the nascent court, the minister added.

Shahin Abul Fotouh, board member of the Arab Organisation for Young Lawyers, said the court will definitely encourage divorce as a simple answer to family disputes.

“Though one of its main characteristics is a decisive and quick verdict to the benefit of many abandoned women who spent years in court to get a divorce, it will very much likely encourage divorce,” Fotouh told IslamOnline.net Saturday, August 28.

“Divorce cases will skyrocket as the new court sums up litigation period in a couple of weeks, which could in the past drag on as many as years.”

The young lawyer said the court in one way or another is a response to the recommendations of the 1994 UN International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo.

He said the Egyptian government could have bowed to intense pressures from international organizations, which frequently berated the Egyptian Personal Status Code.

Fotouh also warned that traditional marriages could be turned into western-style civil contracts, which give both partners the rights to plan for their future life in advance.

However, the chairperson of the Egyptian National Council for Women’s Legislative Committee maintained that the court’s statute was in line with Shari’ah or Muslim law.

“In enlisting a socialist and a psychologist, the court’s statute is based on Shari’ah, which asks two relatives of the husband and his wife to mediate between them to fend off divorce,” Fawzia Abdel Sattar told IOL.

Sheikh Jamal Qotb, an Al-Azhar scholar, said there is no loopholes in the court’s statute, even though it comprises no religious figures.

He said the three judges are expected to be specialists in personal status cases and seasoned enough to judge themselves.