Financial Times reports that Saudi legal reform is expanding its scope. New Commercial Courts will be set up around the country in order to create uniformity in court decisions on business issues. As the piece points out, leaving complex business issues in the hands of judges educated only in Shariah law is not the way to do it, though the country has struggled with exactly that system for most of its history.

The article reports that judges for the new courts have been sent abroad, to Europe and the US, to observe the operations of similar legal institutions. The goal is to bring some consistency and greater authority to the courts, something that’s been seriously lacking. Do read the entire piece.

Saudi Arabia set to reform commercial courts
Abeer Allam

After announcing a broad initiative of legal reform two years ago, Saudi Arabia now says it plans to establish new commercial courts in each of its 13 provinces next year as part of a $2.2bn drive.

An announcement last week that verdicts will be published on the justice ministry’s website suggests that the new courts will be more than window-dressing, and that an absence of sorely needed consistency has been recognised.

The Saudi capital markets authority has already begun publishing the names of insider trading and share manipulation offenders.

But, unlike other countries in the region, Saudi judges try to apply Islamic texts directly, rather than using them as a source of law. They specifically reject any system of precedent, as in common law systems, out of a fear that they may be “misled” by human wisdom. And no comprehensive civil code has been adopted, though such systems, often derived from French models, are common in the Arab world.

As a result, simple matters are beset with uncertainty in Saudi Arabia.
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