Challenges to Legal Reforms in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

A new direction of legal reforms is underway in the Kingdom, one that might take several years to mature but that, inevitably, will result in clearer codes. Civil, criminal, and economic concerns evolved as the four new codifications introduced/planned significant new changes and, in most instances, clarified—even simplified—the law. The four new laws, namely, the personal status law, the civil transactions law, the penal code of discretionary sanctions, and the law of evidence, helped streamline the courts’ and tribunals’ powers relating to contempt matters, and the kinds of appropriate penalties the latter imposed. Notably, the codes did not renege on Shari‘ah, the Kingdom’s core legal precepts, which will always retain its legitimizing stake. Consequently, it may be appropriate to state that Riyadh ushered in updated versions of existing laws that favored transparency and accountability, to add value instead of uprooting Shari‘ah. These steps fulfilled Saudi traditional preferences though few outsiders, especially those unfamiliar with its society or impatient with the pace of its reforms, failed to note the epochal changes underway.