A recent study standardized rulings on 150 controversial court cases that mainly pertained to sanctions, kinship and child custody.

Mansour Al-Thubaiti, a judge at the Criminal Court in Tabuk, conducted this study for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) on the request of Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdulaziz Al-Asheikh.

Al-Thubaiti said that the grand mufti’s request to find a way to end disparity in judgments in similar cases is a significant one.

Some judges, he said, side with parents who believe they have a right to end their daughter’s marriage if they feel, for instance, that the groom’s social status is incompatible with that of their family, while “others see that a man’s religious standards take precedent over other matters,” added Al-Thubaiti.

“This disparity in judgments has been cited by critics to attack Islamic law,” he said.

Some cases, he said, must bear different rulings at the discretion of the judge.