JEDDAH — The Minister of Justice Mohammed Al-Issa has set penalties for litigants who fail to execute legal verdicts against them after there were reports of courts being lenient with guilty defendants. These penalties include being banned from travel until the verdict is fully executed, banned from the right to sponsor an expatriate and the suspension of all monetary transactions. If any discrepancies in executing the penalties occur, the defendant is subject to imprisonment. In addition to the penalties, the judge has the right to issue additional penalties such as prohibiting all government directorates from dealing with the defendant, suspending his bank accounts, prohibiting all financial establishments from dealing with the defendant and demanding bank account statements from relatives. The minister urged the judicial inspection directorate to closely follow up and monitor the execution of verdicts issued by the courts. In turn, all judges must submit written reports of all cases, their verdicts, date of the hearing and period of execution. The minister has set the following regulations for all judges: * All courts must issue legal verdicts in the presence of the defendant or his representative. * All courts must adhere to the time period set by the law to execute a verdict regardless of the cooperation or lack of from the defendant. * All verdicts must be documented with the name of the judge who issued the verdict, his court, the name of the defendant and the verdict itself, and * The convicts have 20 days to adhere to the verdict. If the deadline passes and the defendant had not responded, then the court is to publicize the verdict and the defendant's name in a daily newspaper and hold him liable for bearing the costs of the advertisement.
