Kingdom faces unprecedented overhaul of judicial system
Published: Feb 26, 2010 00:48 Updated: Feb 26, 2010 00:48
JEDDAH: As the Kingdom prepares to accommodate Saudi women lawyers in specials courts that deal with domestic disputes, the country is also facing an unprecedented series of overhaul of the judicial system.
Over the past 14 months, the courts have considered a number of cases raised by the local media turning them into “public opinion issues” and thus making them rank among the most remarkable incidents of the year.
The media also focused on a number of social issues foremost of which were cases of “family violence,” which the Saudi society has become accustomed to seeing in the newspapers.
The Saudi media was keen to give wide coverage to these cases which were earlier kept in the dark. The other cases looked by the courts related to genealogy. These were topped by the famous case of Fatima, whose father denied her parental rights and refused to run a DNA test.
All in all, the most prominent cases before the Saudi courts last year were media issues.
Arab News was the first publication against which a case was raised in the courts. In the second quarter of last year, the newspaper was accused of publishing a false news story. Judge Hamad Al-Razeen filed a lawsuit in Khamis Mushayt summary court against the newspaper’s reporter in the Southern Region Hayat Al-Ghamdi accusing her of misquoting him in a false report which was carried by a number of foreign Internet sites.
The judge demanded his “personal rights” from the court and filed a similar case for the “public rights” at the Ministry of Culture and Information. The case was still pending.
“Taking the media cases to the courts is an attempt to override the laws and regulations,” said Mufeed Al-Nuwaisir, a journalist, recalling that there was a special commission at the Ministry of Culture and Information to consider media cases.
Al-Nuwaisir noted that the Saudi courts did not recognize the identity of the Saudi woman and said the judges would usually ask woman to bring a legal representative to speak for her despite her ability to stand before the judges and defend herself. It seemed that the Saudi courts were on a date with the media. No sooner had the furor created by Al-Razeen lawsuit against Hayat Al-Ghamdi had subsided then the issue of the “sex bragger” cropped up before Jeddah summary court. The case immediately became a public opinion issue. Fire broke out against the LBC, the Lebanese TV channel which hosted the bragger in the “Bold Redline” program.
The Saudi courts were now looking not only at local media cases but international ones as well. The local newspapers competed harshly to obtain news on the case from the court.
A non-Arabic newspaper published an erroneous report about the case quoting court sources. This raises the question about the importance of publicizing fines and punishments imposed by the commission of the ministry on newspapers and reporters. “It is not in my interest as a journalist to delve in the issue of fines and punishments. However, I believe that the inclination of the ministry’s commission not to talk about the issues under its consideration, because they are marginal, has a negative effect in general,” Al-Nuwasir said.
He believed that the ceiling of freedom varies from one newspaper to another and said, “Such freedom depends largely on the courage of editors in chief.”
Lawyer Khaled Abu Rashid believes that the publishing of newspaper stories to media and other court issues is a “healthy sign” and is also a tool to cultivate society.
“However the publishing of these cases does not help them in courts because the newspapers do not come up with accurate details that may legally serve the issue,” he said. Al-Nuwaisir said the publishing of the names of those involved in media issues gave them the pretext to come under the umbrella of “media persons.”
“This is a broad word. We have to distinguish between media persons and those who send and receive fax messages in public relations companies,” he said. He called for formulating strict parameters to decide who is a journalist, a media person, a media expert, an analyst and others.
“Some foreign press organizations open offices in Saudi Arabia depending on local skills which have no relation whatsoever to journalism or media. They only depend on what they call themselves sources of information,” he said. The case against LBC was not the last of issue raised before the Saudi courts. Yasser Qabani, a Saudi citizen, filed a lawsuit against Al-Arabiyah TV channel alleging that it made mockery of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him). The case against LBC ended with the closure of the the offices of the Lebanese channel in the Kingdom.
For the first time in its history, the Jeddah court considered a case of defamation on the Internet in addition to a case against Rino, a 15-year old hacker accused of penetrating a number of electronic sites. The courts also looked into cases filed by a citizen against two tobacco companies.
According to Abu Rashid the reason Jeddah courts topped other Saudi courts in looking at media cases was due to the very nature of the city itself. “The seaport has made Jeddah an open city with diversified inhabitants. This explains the diversity of cases before the courts,” he added.
According to the lawyer, the media and other social cases in the courts are of a reasonable level considering the number of the Kingdom’s population which is more than 25 million.
The tragedy of floods in Jeddah had its share in the courts. A woman victim filed a case in the court demanding financial compensation for the damages to her home while her divorcee husband threatened to take the children if she did not allow him to take the compensation.
The foreigners also had their presence in the Saudi courts. An Arab woman of 70 was sentenced to four months in prison and 40 lashes on charges of Khalwah (seclusion) with a man who was not related (mahram) to her.
The Saudi courts are now waiting to implement the new judicial system. Justice Minister Muhammad Al-Eissa announced the intention of the ministry to put controls on the marriage of young girls. He was responding to a media campaign against marriage of old men to young girls. The media had highlighted the case of a nine-year-old girl from Onaiza whose father made her to marry a man in his late fifties.
Many Saudis are hopeful that the year 2010 will witness the fruits of judicial reforms ordered by Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah. Abu Rashid believes that these reforms may also include traffic and personal affairs cases.
