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Article: SAUDI ARABIA - Saudi Justice System Improving.
- Article from:
- APS Review Oil Market Trends
- Article date:
- October 22, 2007
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In a move widely welcomed in Saudi Arabia and abroad, King Abdullah early this month decreed an overhaul of the country's archaic judicial system and an allocation of $2 bn for building court-houses and training judges. This was immediately hailed by Saudi reformers, businessmen and lawyers as the beginning of a new cycle of reforms repeatedly called for in the kingdom.
The Saudi system, hitherto run by conservative Wahhabi judges trained in strict Sunni Islamic law, has long been criticised as opaque, lacking in some of the safeguards of justice and unable to deal with the modern world. The FT on Oct. 5 quoted Saudi lawyer Abdul-Aziz al-Fahd as saying: "Since ...