The Dean of the Higher Institute of the Judiciary (HIJ), the body that trains judges for judicial posts after completing university training in Islamic Law, has said that the legal system would “benefit from man-made laws compatible with Islamic Shariah Law” and has called for sentences to be codified as soon as possible to avoid variances in sentences for similar crimes. Abdul Rahman Al-Mazeini added that the Ministry of Justice and the Council of the Judiciary were looking into greater consistency in sentencing and its application. Proposals from the HIJ have been drawn up and presented to the Imam Mohammed Bin Saud University in Riyadh. “Scholars have different opinions on the codification of sentences,” Al-Mazeini said, “and a jurisprudential argument has been going on for a long time, but many scholars in the Kingdom such as Sheikh Abdullah Bin Suleiman Bin Maneah of the Board of Senior Ulema support the codification of sentences.” Al-Mazeini also said that HIJ curricula would be revised to cover new areas of court jurisdiction and that alternative sentences to prison as taught in the current program would be widened. .The Supreme Judicial Council gave Penal Court judges the right as of early July to pronounce alternative sentences to prison in public prosecutions, putting an end to a wait of eight years since the idea was first mooted as a way to relieve pressure on the Kingdom's prisons and find punishments deemed to be of greater benefit to the individual and society at large. While the specific nature of alternative sentences was not declared, it was said that they would only be applicable to first-time offenders and in cases not involving “serious crimes”. The sentences could be rejected by convicted parties who may elect to serve the prison term instead.
