The Department of Law at the University of Human Development organised a panel featuring two of its lecturers addressing several conflicting issues related to complaints in the area of personal status laws, titled ‘Characteristics of Personal Status Complaints in Light of Current Laws and the Rulings of the Court of Cassation.’ The main speaker was Judge Muhammed Mustafa Rasul, while Mr Hardi Tawfiq Mustafa served as the moderator. The event was held in Professor Dr Ali Qaradaghi Hall on 15 February 2025.

The problem the panel aimed to address pertains to the two different legal systems operating in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI), where local laws sometimes conflict with federal laws, leaving gaps that remain unresolved.

This issue manifests in many areas, with one example being the 1971 Birth and Wills Registration Act, which was passed by the then Iraqi legislative body and later adopted by the federal government until recently. This law has since been replaced by another law enacted in 2024. The core issue is that the KRI has a law passed by its parliament in 1992, stating that any laws enacted by the Iraqi parliament must go through the KRI parliament for approval; otherwise, they are deemed invalid. Currently, the KRI parliament is in a state of suspension and has not convened for several years due to political tensions and other legal problems, leaving the KRI in a legal vacuum. The 2024 federal Act requires approval from the KRI parliament, which is currently inactive.

A few KRI judges sought the opinion of the KRI Court of Cassation, the only highest court in the region, to resolve the issue. The Court of Cassation indicated that KRI courts can follow the new federal Act for disputes related to personal status matters. However, this decision contradicts the KRI 1992 ruling, which states that any Iraqi laws must be passed again by the KRI parliament to be valid and usable in court disputes. This represents one of many legal dilemmas in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.