RIYADH, 28 August 2003 — Saudi Arabia has granted 338 licenses to lawyers within the framework of the new regulations introduced by the Ministry of Justice to streamline the legal profession. A top Saudi official said the licenses were awarded on the recommendation of a ministry panel.
“The committee assigned to grant licenses has held some 25 meetings and issued a number of decisions related to the registration of lawyers who applied,” said Sheikh Abdullah ibn Mohammed Al-Yahya, undersecretary at the Ministry of Justice, in a report.
The move to license lawyers is mainly intended to improve the legal system in Saudi Arabia, which has been undergoing substantial changes both structurally and procedurally.
“There is also a plan to set up a lawyers’ association, the first of its kind on a par with a bar council, on the initiative of the lawyers,” a Saudi lawyer at the Law Offices of Abdulaziz H. Fahd told Arab News here yesterday.
However, he was unable to provide details about the proposed body.
The renewed efforts on the part of the ministry to license lawyers also answer the concerns of the UN Commission of Human Rights special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Dato Param Cumaraswamy, who was surprised to find that only 67 lawyers were registered when he visited the Kingdom in October last year. At the time he also raised the issue of allowing lawyers to set up an association or bar council.
There are more than 1,800 working law offices around the country, including 688 in Riyadh, 450 in Jeddah and over 200 in the Eastern Province. Many lawyers who have been practicing law for up to 30 years have been reluctant to approach the ministry seeking fresh licenses.
A group of first-generation lawyers had their licenses issued by the Commerce Ministry, which was the competent authority many years ago, said legal expert Ali Mohammed Ali from the Law Office of Mohannad S. Al-Rasheed.
