going in codifying the Kingdom's laws so as to assure uniformity of judgments and procedures and to guarantee the rights of defendants in the judicial process works only to disrupt the development and soil the reputation of Saudi Arabia. The codification of Shariah law has just received a green light from the country's top religious body, paving the way to make the country's laws clearly defined and part of a system that will produce verdicts based on written law and not on arbitrary interpretation of what one believes the law to be. Without codifying such law, there is no way to guarantee not only that courts in all regions are playing by the same rules but that courts at all levels of the judicial process are operating on the same standards. Saudi membership in the WTO and the G-20 mean that the Kingdom must reform its legal system to meet the same standards met by other members, especially in the realm of commercial law. This does not mean that its legal system should mirror those of other members, but that it should display the same clarity, transparency, objective fairness and integrity inherent in a developed legal system. Codifying the law is just the first step in bringing our legal system up to world standards. There is a shortage of lawyers in the Kingdom, and in many court cases defendants are tried and convicted without the counsel of lawyers. It is inherently unfair for anyone to be forced into a court case without proper representation. Judges and others must also receive rigorous training in courtroom procedure and the reasons that strict adherence to procedure and a uniformity of procedure is a necessity for meting out true justice. And judges and lawyers, especially, must be fully educated in the detail and the nuance of the law. In the end, a uniform and codified legal system will be advantageous to everyone and to all groups in the Kingdom. __
