The lawyer representing a 40-year-old Saudi woman surgeon has demanded that the Court of Appeals annul a verdict by a Madina general court judge who rejected her lawsuit that accused her father of blocking her marriage. The woman's father has allegedly refused to approve his daughter's marriage because he takes her SR20,000 monthly salary and gives her SR300 for monthly expenses, according to Ahmad Bin Khaled Al-Sudairi, a well-known lawyer representing the woman, who has never been married. He stressed in an appeal document he presented to the Personal Status Circuit in the Court of Appeals, a copy of which the newspaper is withholding, that the ruling must be overturned and that a judge must be given the authority to approve her marriage. “The father has rejected the man who proposed to the woman despite her acceptance,” he said. The father alleges that he came to know that his daughter has “illegal” relations with the man, moving him to decline the marriage proposal. “This is a false accusation,” the lawyer said. The woman doctor used to treat the man's father in the hospital and the she and the man used to see other time every time the man brought his father for treatment, he added, “Then the man asked for her hand in marriage.” “There is no harm in this because a man is allowed according to the Shariah to see the woman he is going to marry. This is not a case of illicit seclusion,” he said. Al-Sudairi said the judge overturned the Shariah rule by declaring that the father not allowing the woman doctor to get married is in her best interest. He rejected the judge's claim that the woman was disobedient to her father and said she is simply demanding for her rights according to the Shariah. The woman's father has said she rejected several men who asked for her hand in marriage, including one who married her sister, according to a source. The doctor's sister, a teacher, disappeared on her wedding night some seven years ago after her father forced her to marry the man against her wishes, the source said. The sister had allegedly suffered domestic abuse at the hand of her father before fleeing on the wedding night. A complaint about her disappearance was lodged with authorities and with the National Society for Human Rights. The family is still waiting for her return. Al-Sudairi argued that by taking his daughters' salaries, he has transformed them into investments. The woman doctor has sought help from the Social Protection Home due to her father's cruelty and humiliation, he added.
