Kuwait Constitutional Court Supports Female MPs

Kuwait’s Constitutional Court ruled Wednesday that two female MPs who refuse to wear the hijab would indeed be allowed to sit in the country’s parliament. The two women were among four elected this past May, the first women to serve in that capacity. Conservatives had challenged their election on the basis that they refused to wear the hijab, in defiance of a recent ruling by Kuwait’s fatwa department that Muslim women are required to do so. This is another interesting example of constitutional courts mediating between religion and constitutionalism, an important topic on which our own Ran Hirschl has a forthcoming book.