Event Summary
On 17 July 2025, Jordan’s Constitutional Court issued a ruling declaring the Jordanian Teachers’ Syndicate Law unconstitutional, and considering it void from that day on. The 2011 Jordanian Teachers’ Syndicate Law (No. 14 of 2011 and its amendments) had allowed for the legal formation of a syndicate for teachers, concluding that it was constitutionally permitted. Now, the Constitutional Court’s argument is that the formal requirements enshrined in the Constitution were not fulfilled — that the legislative authority (Parliament) exceeded its limit of powers stipulated in the Constitution by issuing the 2011 law, which was solely in the jurisdiction of the executive authority. With this ruling hereby issued, the final legal step to effectively outlaw the long-embattled teachers union has been carried out.
Far from being a merely technical constitutional matter, the timing of the decision reflects Jordan’s broader political trajectory in 2025: an intensifying crackdown on the Muslim Brotherhood and its affiliates. As state actors have long portrayed the Teachers’ Syndicate as a Brotherhood-influenced body, the Constitutional Court’s move can be read as part of a strategy to dismantle one of the mass-mobilizing legacies of the Arab Spring.