Ghada Jamshir heads a women's committee lobbying for a personal status law that would shift jurisdiction over family and women's affairs from Islamic to civil courts.
She said that Manama criminal court on December 28 acquitted her on charges of having humiliated an Islamic judge in a telephone conversation and in public at the ministry of justice.
"It is a victory for Bahraini women. We have been fighting for years to reform Islamic justice and I hope that this judgement will throw light on the legitimacy of our demands," she said.
In May, she was charged with publicly defaming the Islamic judiciary through distributed pamphlets - a grave crime in the Muslim kingdom of Bahrain - and of insulting a judge during a telephone conversation and in court.
The first charge had been dropped because it was made after the expiry of the statute of limitations and Jamshir said she has now been acquitted of all the accusations.
The judge, Jassem Al Zawadi, had first brought the complaint in 2001.
© 2005 Agence France-Presse
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