The Administration of Justice in al-Andalus and the Principles of Justice in Constitutional Democracies

After a brief historical introduction on the Andalusian reality, and its ethnical, social and human diversity over seven centuries, and the singularities, problematics and peculiarities of al-Andalus, the paper analyses the multiple jurisdictions of the Islamic Andalusian Court. The study follows exanimating some of the distinctive elements of the Andalusian administration of justice and the role that specialized judges developed. The paper then exposes the meaning and scope of modern principles of justice, as prescribed by Article 10 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in Article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and their relation with the Islamic law and al-Andalus. The final goals of the paper are to remark the parallelism in the evolution of the human rights epistemology and Islamic law. Despite that the former principles are contemporary, the subjects paper of the analysis are historical. The paper methodologically proposes an anachronistic dialogue contextualizing the compared topics and realities.