Today, Monday, a source with the Juridical Council who did not want to be named told KurdSat English that the Council decided to make Kurdish the sole language of court decisions in the Kurdistan region.

Today, the Judicial Council of the Kurdistan region issued a decree signed by Judicial Council Chief Justice Abduljabar Aziz Hassan that aims to regulate the language of the courts in the Kurdistan region. The decree is effective immediately according to the directive. "Arabic is used only as necessary," the directive declares. 

"Some lawyers don't speak good Kurdish, and the decision aims to unite court language because now half of the courts write in Kurdish while the other half of the courts issue decisions in Arabic, and we want to regulate that," the source told KurdSat English.

"Would compile a single legal dictionary for legal terms to help in the process because sometimes there are multiple words [Kurdish] for a single legal term, and the dictionary helps to avoid that," the source added.

The dictionary might also pose some challenges as both Kurdish Kurmanji and Sorani are spoken in the Kurdistan region, where speakers of both languages sometimes need help understanding each other. 

The decision of the Judicial Council came after a series of joint meetings between the Judicial Council, Parliament, the Prosecutor's Office and the Kurdish Academy, the Judicial Council said.

The source also added, "the decision is per the Iraqi constitution that stipulates that the official languages of Iraq are Kurdish and Arabic."

Most Kurds in the Kurdistan region do not speak Arabic, and that is more so with the younger generations. Also, most university departments' education medium is English rather than Arabic or Kurdish. Such a decision might have a significant effect as most administrative paperwork in the Ministry of Justice, and other ministries of the Kurdistan region is done in Kurdish. Though it might help unify the official language of the courts and enrich Kurdish vocabulary.