Law of the Judiciary

Purpose and scope

• Governs the judiciary, the courts, the Supreme Judicial Council, judges' affairs and notaries, and provides that judges are independent and subject only to Sharia and the laws in force (Article 1).

Key rules, rights and obligations

• Judges cannot be removed except in the cases set out in the law (Article 2), and may not be sued for their judicial work except under the rules on their discipline (Article 4).
• The courts are the Supreme Court, the courts of appeal and the first-instance courts: general, criminal, personal status, commercial and labour (Article 9).
• The Supreme Court oversees the correct application of Sharia and the laws in cases within the general judiciary (Article 11).
• Courts of appeal sit in civil, criminal, personal status, commercial and labour circuits (Articles 15 and 16).
• A judge must be Saudi by origin, of good conduct, and hold a Sharia degree or an equivalent (Article 31).

Violations, penalties and common problems

• Common problem: filing a case before a court without subject-matter jurisdiction, which delays the decision.
• General courts include circuits for enforcement, uncontested attestations and traffic accident cases (Article 19), and criminal courts have circuits for qisas and hudud, discretionary penalties and juveniles (Article 20).

Procedures and key deadlines

• Notaries authenticate contracts and record acknowledgements, except waqfs and wills, and some of these tasks may be delegated to others under a regulation (Article 74).
• Notarial documents have evidential force and are acted on in court without further proof, and may be challenged only on specified grounds (Article 80).
• Procedures and deadlines are found in the Law of Sharia Procedure and the Criminal Procedure Law (Article 11).

An advisory summary prepared by Al-Bayan Al-Wadih Law Firm. It is not an official text and does not replace the law, its implementing regulations, or advice from a specialised lawyer. The official published text and its amendments prevail.