Courts in the Kingdom annulled a total of 8,952 marriage contracts in the last three years with Saudi couples accounting for the maximum number of such cases.

Local media quoting a source at the Ministry of Justice said the marriage annulment was attributed to various factors including poor marital conditions, presence of defect in one of the spouses, the absence of a husband for a long time, or imprisonment of one of the couples.

Saudi couples had the highest number of marriage annulment cases at 8,746, followed by Burmese at 329 cases, Pakistanis at 99 cases, and Nigerians at 78 cases, Al-Watan daily said.

Meanwhile, a judge at the Ministry of Justice, Ahmed Al-Ma’abi, said the annulment of marriage contracts was the responsibly of judges in general courts. The judgment is given only after all means are exhausted to restore marital relations between the couple, he said.

Lawyer Riyyan Mufti said the judge retains the right of annulling the marriage contract if he feels that the woman may be harmed by depriving her of her rights as a result of the marriage or subjected to any sort of body, physical or psychological harm.

It may be recalled that Saudi courts recently received 128 “khula” (where women request divorce from their husbands) cases.


The largest number of “khula” cases was reported in Riyadh and Jeddah courts which accounted for 56 percent of all cases, local media reported quoting data from the Ministry of Justice.