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After the withdrawal of regime forces, the need to re-establish judicial institutions was rapidly felt for two main reasons. First, local communities were seeking some protection from the insecurity that resulted from the collapse of state authority, and in particular from exactions by criminal gangs and rogue rebel groups. Second, the rebel groups themselves were in need of an authority that could deal with the war prisoners who had not been summarily executed, and arbitrate among themselves regarding the division of booty. Only later on did some of the newly established judicial authorities start to enforce public morality, a phenomenon that has remained limited and localized until now.
In the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo, newly established local courts were gradually integrated into a unified hierarchy at the provincial level. It was also agreed in principle that local courts would implement the Unified Arab Code, a sharia-inspired code agreed upon (but never implemented) by the Arab Ministers of Justice in 1996. A broad consensus also emerged concerning the non-implementation of hudud (corporal punishment), following the mainstream scholarly opinion, wherein the implementation of hudud requires a situation of peace as well as a legitimate state authority. Moreover, courts were generally favouring arbitration over punishment, the judges being chiefly concerned with the preservation of social unity in a context that was rendered extremely volatile by the proliferation of armed groups. Of significance here is the fact that the first post-revolutionary judicial institutions were dominated by traditionalist men of religion with moderate political views.
full: http://www.fljs.org/content/implementing-%E2%80%98sharia%E2%80%99-syria%E2%80%99s-liberated-provinces
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