Judicial System

Judicial System in Saudi Arabia
respond to that development for technical reasons such as
not finishing enacting the criminal procedural laws and
the pleading laws on the one hand, and objective reasons
relating to the legitimacy / Sharia compliant of some bodies
and background of the existing disputes which led to the
expansion of formation of these committees because of
the growing need. Dr. Mohammed Al Mazrouie mentioned
another reason for formation of these quasi-judicial
committees that is, “resulting from the instability of the
notion/ idea of codification of judgments that are binding on
judges, so the Saudi authorities were compelled to create a
body [i.e. quasi-judicial committee] for each law/ regime to
adjudicate disputes and violations to that law/ regime”.
Second: the resolutions made by the quasi-judicial
committees may be summarized as follows:
1) Decisive resolution of disputes without intervention of
any other judicial authority; examples include the labor
disputes committees, and customs disputes committees
which are formed of two instances hierarchy – a first
instance committee and an appeal committee;
2) Dismissal conditional upon approval of the senior
person in charge in the respective department; examples
include disciplinary action against military men and
violation committed by students;
3) Amicable settlement such as banking disputes though
its nature requires deciding the matter and not only
reaching settlement;
4) Imposing direct punishment/ penalties on occurrence
of the violation without trial such as violations of the
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