JEDDAH, 14 May 2007 — The Court of Grievances in Riyadh yesterday postponed until July 2 the first ever compensation lawsuit against a member of the Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice filed by a Saudi woman after commission members failed to respond to a court summons.
“Apparently there was some sort of mess-up in informing commission officials about the court summons calling them to present themselves at the hearing,” said Abdul Rahman Al-Lahem, the woman’s lawyer.
Al-Lahem is representing a mother and daughter who were stopped by commission members in 2004 in front of a Riyadh shopping center. They accused the women, who were waiting in their car together with their driver, of not conforming to customs of decency.
A commission member asked the driver to get out of the car and told the women that he was driving them to a local commission center. He prevented the women from telephoning their relatives.
However, the car broke down on the way and smoke began to bellow from the hood of the car. The commission member then got out of the car and left the woman and her daughter in “a state of panic and horror at the side of the road,” said Al-Lahem. Passers-by stopped and helped the women contact their relatives.
“Immediately, the women informed officials and a committee of governmental bodies in the Riyadh governorate. The Investigation and Prosecution Board and other officials from the commission were also informed,” said Al-Lahem. The lawyer said that the committee recommended that the commission member be put on trial at the Riyadh-based Court of Grievances.
“He was later found guilty and was sentenced accordingly. The sentence he received was not announced to the public until now; we have no idea of the punishment he received,” said the lawyer.
As a committee was formed on a government level to internally discuss the case, the women filed a lawsuit at the Riyadh General Court to prosecute the commission member in line with their civil rights. One of the women “was sick at the time and the sudden shock she received (by the incident) caused her subsequent health complications,” said Al-Lahem.
A decision on the women’s lawsuit, which was filed in 2004 at the Riyadh General Court, was only taken in September 2006 with the court dismissing the women’s case on the basis of an outdated fatwa (religious decree) that states that individuals may not hold commission members accountable, explained the lawyer.
In turn the women, who were insistent on the issue being followed up, filed another lawsuit at the Court of Grievances demanding their rights. “The General Court decision made the commission, which is a governmental body, above the law. But, now my client is taking the case to the Court of Grievances since the court’s Article 18, Section G, clearly states that its duties include ‘compensation lawsuits from individuals made against the government and public figures as a result of their actions’,” said Al-Lahem.
He added that his client is entitled to SR1 million in compensation. He said that this was only an estimated figure that he thinks would cover the damage to the car and more importantly the moral and defamatory harm experienced by his client.
The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice was formed in Riyadh in the mid 1920s. A year later another branch was established in the Western Province that was called the Hijaz region at the time. The two bodies were merged and given the official name “The Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” in 1976 by King Khaled. Its appointed head was given the rank of a minister.
Along with other governmental bodies such as the Presidency of Youth Welfare, the commission reports to the Council of Ministers directly. In 1980, after its official naming, a royal decree established the commission’s system giving it “a number of powers,” as mentioned in the commission’s website.
Al-Lahem added, “Most importantly, I hope that cases such as this are the beginning of establishing a culture of equality and transparency (of government bodies), and that they reinforce the independence of the Kingdom’s judicial system by protecting the human rights of individuals.”
