Judiciary of Saudi Arabia
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The judiciary of Saudi Arabia is a branch of the
government of Saudi Arabia The politics of Saudi Arabia takes place in the context of a unitary absolute monarchy along Islamic lines, where the King is both the head of state and government. Decisions are, to a large extent, made on the basis of consultation among the Ki ...
that interprets and applies the laws of Saudi Arabia. The legal system is based on the Islamic code of Sharia, with its judges and lawyers forming part of the country's religious leadership or
ulama In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
. There are also non-Sharia government tribunals which handle disputes relating to specific royal decrees. Final appeal from both Sharia courts and government tribunals is to the
King of Saudi Arabia The king of Saudi Arabia is the monarchial head of state and ruler of Saudi Arabia who holds absolute power. He is the head of the Saudi Arabian royal family, the House of Saud. The king is called the "Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques" (), a ...
and all courts and tribunals follow Sharia rules of evidence and procedure.


Sharia courts

The Sharia courts have general jurisdiction over most civil and criminal cases. At present, there are two types of
courts of first instance A trial court or court of first instance is a court having original jurisdiction, in which trials take place. Appeals from the decisions of trial courts are usually made by higher courts with the power of appellate review (appellate courts). Mos ...
: general courts and summary courts dealing with lesser cases. Cases are adjudicated by single judges, except criminal cases if the potential sentence is death, amputation or stoning when there is a panel of three judges. There are also two courts for the Shia minority in the Eastern Province dealing with family and religious matters.
Appellate court A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of ...
s sit in Mecca and Riyadh and review decisions for compliance with Sharia.


Non-Sharia tribunals

There are also non-Sharia courts covering specialized areas of law, including the Board of Grievances, the
Specialized Criminal Court The Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) ( ar, المحكمة الجزائية المتخصصة) is a non- Sharia court created in Saudi Arabia in 2008 that tries suspected terrorists and human rights activists. On 26 June 2011, the court started tr ...
, created in 2008, and the Supreme Court. The Board of Grievances was originally created to deal with complaints against the government, but also gained jurisdiction over commercial and some criminal cases, such as bribery and forgery, and acts as a court of appeal for a number of non-Sharia government tribunals. These administrative tribunals, referred to as "committees", deal with specific issues regulated by royal decrees, such as labor and commercial law.


Judges

The judicial establishment, in the broadest sense, is composed of ''
qadi A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a '' sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and mino ...
s'', who give binding judgements in specific court cases, and ''
mufti A Mufti (; ar, مفتي) is an Islamic jurist qualified to issue a nonbinding opinion (''fatwa'') on a point of Islamic law (''sharia''). The act of issuing fatwas is called ''iftāʾ''. Muftis and their ''fatwas'' played an important role ...
s'' and other members of the ''
ulama In Islam, the ''ulama'' (; ar, علماء ', singular ', "scholar", literally "the learned ones", also spelled ''ulema''; feminine: ''alimah'' ingularand ''aalimath'' lural are the guardians, transmitters, and interpreters of religious ...
'', who issue generalized but highly influential legal opinions (''
fatwas A fatwā ( ; ar, فتوى; plural ''fatāwā'' ) is a legal ruling on a point of Islamic law (''sharia'') given by a qualified '' Faqih'' (Islamic jurist) in response to a question posed by a private individual, judge or government. A jurist i ...
''). The Grand Mufti (currently, Abdul-Aziz Al ash-Sheikh) is the most senior member of the judicial establishment as well as being the highest religious authority in the country; his opinions are highly influential among the Saudi judiciary. The judiciary proper (that is, the body of ''qadis'') is composed of about 700 judges. ''Qadis'' generally have degrees in Sharia law from an Islamic university recognized by the Saudi government with, in many cases, a post-graduate qualification from the Institute of Higher Judiciary in Riyadh. The training received from such Sharia law degrees is entirely religious in character and is based on the Qu'ran and centuries old religious treatises with no reference to, for example, modern commercial issues. Although most judges have been educated and appointed under the current system, some of the older judges received the traditional ''qadi's'' training of years of instruction by a religious mentor in a mosque. The capabilities and reactionary nature of the judges have been criticized. The main complaint reportedly made by Saudis privately is that judges, who have wide discretion in interpreting the Sharia, have no knowledge, and are often contemptuous, of the modern world. Reported examples of judges' attitudes include rulings banning such things as the children's game Pokémon, telephones that play recorded music, and sending flowers to hospital patients. Saudi judges come from a narrow recruitment pool. By one estimate, 80% are from
Al-Qassim province The Qassim Province ( ar, منطقة القصيم ' , Najdi Arabic: ), also known as the Qassim Region, is one of the 13 provinces of Saudi Arabia. Located at the heart of the country near the geographic center of the Arabian Peninsula, it ha ...
, the conservative religious heartland of Saudi Arabia in the center of the country. Senior judges will only allow like-minded graduates of select religious institutes to join the judiciary and will remove judges that stray away from rigidly conservative judgments.


Reform and development

The Saudi system of justice has been criticized for being slow, arcane, lacking in some of the safeguards of justice and unable to deal with the modern world. In 2007, King Abdullah issued royal decrees with the aim of reforming the judiciary and creating a new court system. The reforms have yet to be implemented in full but, once they are, will include the creation of a Supreme Court, and the transfer of the Board of Grievances' commercial and criminal jurisdictions to a restructured general court system. New specialist first instance courts will be established comprising general, criminal, personal status, commercial and labor courts. The Sharia courts will therefore lose their general jurisdiction to hear all cases and the work load of the government's administrative tribunals will be transferred to the new courts. Another important change is the establishment of appeal courts for each province. It has been claimed that the reforms will establish a system for codifying Sharia and incorporating the principle of judicial precedent into court practice. In 2008, the
Specialized Criminal Court The Specialized Criminal Court (SCC) ( ar, المحكمة الجزائية المتخصصة) is a non- Sharia court created in Saudi Arabia in 2008 that tries suspected terrorists and human rights activists. On 26 June 2011, the court started tr ...
was created. The court tries suspected
terrorists Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...
and
human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...
activists. On 26 June 2011, the court started trials of 85 people suspected of being involved in
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula ( ar-at, تنظيم القاعدة في جزيرة العرب, Tanẓīm al-Qā‘idah fī Jazīrat al-‘Arab, lit=Organization of the Base in the Arabian Peninsula or , ''Tanẓīm Qā‘idat al-Jihād fī Jaz ...
and the 2003
Riyadh compound bombings Two major bombings took place in residential compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in 2003. On 12 May 2003, 39 people were killed, and over 160 wounded when bombs went off at three compounds in Riyadh—Dorrat Al Jadawel, Al Hamra Oasis Village, an ...
, and in September 2011 another 41 al-Qaeda suspects appeared in the court. In the same year, the court held trial sessions of human rights activists, including
Mohammed Saleh al-Bejadi Mohammed Saleh al-Bejadi (or ''Muhammad'', ''Salih'', ''al-Bajadi'', ''albjadi'') is a co-founder of the Saudi Arabian human rights organisation Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (ACPRA) who has campaigned for prisoners' rights since ...
, co-founder of the
Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association The Saudi Civil and Political Rights Association (''ACPRA'') ( ar, جمعية الحقوق المدنية والسياسية في السعودية) is a Saudi Arabian human rights non-governmental organisation created in 2009. On 9 March 2013, the ...
(ACPRA) and Mubarak Zu'air, a lawyer for long-term prisoners, and a protester,
Khaled al-Johani Khaled al-Johani (also ''al-Jehani'', Arabic: خالد الجهني, born 23rd August1971 {{51) is a teacher of religious instruction in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He was imprisoned, without charges or trial for nearly one year, at ʽUlaysha Prison for ...
, who spoke to
BBC Arabic Television BBC News Arabic ( ar, بي بي سي نيوز عربي), formerly BBC Arabic Television, is a television news channel broadcast to the Arab World by the BBC. It was launched on 11 March 2008. It is run by the BBC World Service and funded from th ...
at a protest in Riyadh. The court convicted 16 of the human rights activists to sentences of 5–30 years on 22 November 2011. In 2009, the King made a number of significant changes to the judiciary's personnel at the most senior level by bringing in a younger generation. For example, as well as appointing a new Minister of Justice, a new chairman of the Supreme Judicial Council was appointed. The outgoing chairman was known to oppose the codification of Sharia. The king also appointed a new head of the Board of Grievances and Abdulrahman Al Kelya as the first chief justice of the new Supreme Court.


See also

*
Legal system of Saudi Arabia The legal system of Saudi Arabia is based on Sharia, Islamic law derived from the Qur'an and the Sunnah (the traditions) of the Islamic prophet Muhammad. The sources of Sharia also include Islamic scholarly consensus developed after Muhammad's ...


References

{{Judiciaries of Asia Government of Saudi Arabia Islamic courts and tribunals Law of Saudi Arabia