The Role of Guidance and Reform Family Department a Subsidiary of Sharia Courts in West Bank in Preserving the Palestinian Family from Disintegration and to Grant Woman her Legal Rights from the Employees in the Department Point of View

The aim of the study was to identify the role of the Guidance and Reform Family Department that is a subsidiary of Sharia Courts in West Bank in preserving the Palestinian family from disintegration, and to grant women their legal rights from the perspective of the employees in the department. In addition, to identify the employees’ degree of evaluation in this department for the role that they perform, and to recognize the major obstacles that limit the department from performing its duties efficiently and effectively, as well as, methods to overcome those obstacles, and raise the level of performance in the department. To achieve this, the researcher has designed a questionnaire as a tool of the study, and followed the descriptive survey method, where she distributed the questionnaire on the whole sample that is composed of (32) employees working in the Guidance and Reform Family Department, that are subsidiary of all the Sharia Courts in all West Bank. Analysis of data and statistics was performed via quantitative methods at the Palestinian Central Berea of Statistics and the Guidance and Reform Family Department, in order to identify the role of the department to limit the rate of divorce in the Palestinian society. The results indicate that the Guidance and Reform Family Department that is a subsidiary of Sharia Courts in West Bank in preserving the Palestinian family from disintegration, and to grant women their legal rights was moderate with a percentage of 78.50%, while the role of the department in therapy was high reaching 85.50%, and was average in preventive and guidance roles with a value of 77.25%. The role was also humble and to a lesser extent on the developmental role with a value of 72.75%. The results revealed significant differences with an α=0.05 regarding the role of the department in preserving Palestinian families from disintegration and granting women their legal rights on the variables such as: gender in favor of male, job title in favor of department head, and academic qualification in favor of master degree in the scientific branch or higher, and the years of experience towards those with 10 years or more and then 5-10 years. There were no significant differences on variables including specialization, and the location of the division that is part of the department. The study revealed also that the degree of evaluation of the employees in the department for the role they perform came out to be high reaching 98.97%, while the obstacles facing the department from the perspective of the employees reached 74.44%. The results indicated that the best way to improve the performance of the department is in providing the suitable environment for counseling and domestic reform, and to establish unified action plan for the department that is circulated on all its sections in Sharia Courts, and toward the independence of the department from outside intrusions in its specific particularities, and to legalize its work in order to give the agreements issued by it the compulsory character. Upon these results, the researcher recommends the importance of work to finding modern laws for civil rights legalizing the department role, and to work on emphasizing the complementary role between the Sharia Judiciary and the Guidance and Reform Family Department, and the importance of providing the suitable environment for counseling to allow the department to perform and upgrade its different roles.