The Ministry of Justice has begun the construction of six criminal courts, which will help prisoners to maintain their privacy, according to an official in the ministry.

These courts will be close to prisons and will incur an estimated cost of SR250 million.

Saad Al-Hazimi, director of projects in the Ministry of Justice, said the courts are expected to be completed within two years, and that they will be set up in the cities of Jeddah, Madinah, Dammam and Jazan.

He said there is a continuous coordination with the General Prison Directorate to secure lands that are close to prisons in all parts of the Kingdom.

Al-Hazimi said the six courts will be very close to prisons and inmates will be transported through a special path that is monitored by cameras. He said the proposal will have many benefits, such as easy and speedy transportation of prisoners without the need of guards, maintaining the privacy of prisoners and protecting them from the prying eyes of onlookers.

They will reduce the cost of transporting prisoners because there will be no need for transportation means and security guards, in addition to making sure that the prisoners attend the court sessions, he said.

Al-Hazimi said the Ministry of Justice gave great attention to the design and implementation of these new buildings according to modern engineering specifications, saying the ministry has completed 17 models for courts and notaries that provide easy access for all citizens, including for the elderly and the disabled.

The ministry signed contracts to establish 33 courts and notaries in various parts of Riyadh Province at a value of SR870.81 million.

Al-Hazimi said the project to establish justice departments in Riyadh is the fourth contract that has been approved by the ministry within it’s plan to cover all parts of the Kingdom with distinguished justice buildings that conform to the requirements of the new justice environment.

He confirmed the ministry has obliged implementing bodies to put an electronic schedule at the location of each project defining the period remaining till the delivery of the project. He said these projects aim to ease pressure off of justice establishments and present accessible services to everyone.

The Ministry of Justice has also tendered a project to build a court complex in Makkah. The complex will have four towers that represent the general court, the criminal court, the court of appeals and the personal status court.

This project represents the first phase of the justice city in the city, which comes as part of the ministry’s projects to establish justice facilities in order to develop the infrastructure of the judiciary, which was announced by the ministry as an axis of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques’s project to strengthen the judiciary system.