Judicial System

Judicial System in Saudi Arabia
lead to judging in favor of the claimant party even if there
is no additional evidence. This is also contrary to other legal
systems which consider testimony as a mere evidence of a
collection of other evidences that may not be conclusive.
For testimony to be admissible in court, it must satisfy the
following conditions:
1. a witness must be an adult, Muslim, Adl [i.e. fair],
unbiased because of animosity or kinship and well
aware of the things he is making testimony for. A
testimony from non-Muslim is acceptable with respect
to non-Muslims, and shall not be accepted against a
Muslim only in very limited instances because one of
the most important conditions of testimony is fairness
so testimony shall not be accepted even from unfair
Muslim, then, a fortiori, it should not be accepted from
a non-Muslim against a Muslim;
2. the defendant should ask the witness and the testimony
shall be upon request of the claimant;
3. the judge shall permit the witness to make his statement;
4. the witness shall use the words ‘I swear’ at the beginning
of his statement; other words such as ‘I know’ or ‘I
ascertain’ are not acceptable;
5. the witness shall restrict his statement to what claimed
by the claimant;
6. the witness’s statement shall be true; it is not acceptable
for a witness to state for example that ‘I swear to what
have been stated by that witness’ – the witness must
state his statement on his/ her own words;
7. the witness must express/ communicate the facts he
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