Saudi Arabia Legal System

The Saudi legal system is based on Sharia, Islamic law derived from the Koran and the Sunnah (traditions) of the Prophet Muhammad. The sources of Islamic Sharia include academic consensus developed after the death of Muhammad. His interpretation by judges in Saudi Arabia is influenced by medieval texts literalist Hanbali school of Islamic jurisprudence. Only in the Muslim world, the Sharia has been adopted by Saudi Arabia in unencrypted. This, and the lack of judicial precedent, has led to great uncertainty on the scope and content of the laws. Therefore, the government announced its intention to codify sharia in 2010, but this still will not run. Sharia has also been supplemented by regulations issued by Royal Decree covering modern topics such as intellectual property and corporate law. However, Sharia remains the main source of law, especially in areas such as criminal, family law, commercial law and contract, and the Qur'an and Sunnah is declared as the country's constitution. In areas of the law of the land and the energy of the broad rights of ownership of the Saudi state (indeed, the Saudi royal family) are an important feature.

 The current Saudi judicial system was created by King Abdul Aziz, who founded the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 1932, and was introduced to the country in stages between 1927 and 1960. It consists of general courts and summary of the Sharia, with some courts administration to address disputes over specific modern regulations. Saudi courts observe few formalities and first code of criminal procedure in the country, published in 2001, has been largely ignored. Decisions are made without juries and usually by a single judge. King Abdullah, in 2007, introduced a number of important judicial reforms, despite not yet been fully implemented.

Criminal punishment in Saudi Arabia include public beheading, stoning, amputation and lashing. Serious offenses include not only internationally recognized crimes, such as murder, rape, robbery and theft, but apostasy, adultery, witchcraft and sorcery. In addition to the regular police, Saudi Arabia has a secret police, the Mabahith, and "religious police" the Mutawa. The latter enforces Islamic social and moral norms. Western-based human rights such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, organizations have criticized the activities of both the Mabahith and Mutawa, as well as a number of other aspects of human rights in Saudi Arabia. These include the number of executions, the range of crimes subject to the death penalty, the lack of safeguards for defendants in the criminal justice system, the treatment of homosexuals, the use of torture, lack religious freedom, and highly disadvantaged position of women. The Albert Shanker Institute and Freedom House have also reported that "Saudi Arabia practices diverge from the concept of the rule of law."