Legal Status of Regulations as a Source of Legislation in the Saudi Legal System

(Adnan Al Omar)

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Abstract

Saudi Arabia has a unique legal system that is significantly different from other major legal systems in the world. It is based on Islamic Law (Sharia) in addition to nationally enacted legislations issued by the rulers, which contains systems and sub systems that do not contradict sharia law. The work aimed to determine the legal status of such enacted legislations in the Saudi legal system and determine its status as an original source that should be referred to by judges when judging conflicts. The research is composed of an introduction, two sections, and a conclusion. The first section aimed to define the original law sources of legislative rules and its importance. The second examine the two original sources of the Saudi legal system. The work concluded that the official sources of the Saudi legal system are principal source, which is the Islamic law, and a special original source, which is, enacted legislations. Both sources has the same authority since enacted legislations has the same enforcing power as Sharia laws. Enacted legislations are viewed as exceptional status of sharia laws. However, in contrary to the general rule "special rules override general rules", if contradiction is revealed between enacted legislation and sharia, Sharia law should be enforced. The work recommended that enacted legislations issued by the ruler should be clearly considered as the main source of its related cases. Judges must primarily resort to the enacted legislations that were drafted to handle issues that are not covered by Islamic law. In addition, the introduction of each enacted legislation manuscript should include the legal adopted sources of its rules that should be referred to ahead of any other sources. Key Words: Enacted legislation, Islamic law, legislation sources.
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