A. Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia is an independent Muslim country that has not ‘received’ any system of foreign law.[950] Saudi family law, or ‘the Law of Personal Status’, is based on the Islamic Shari’ah, which derives its authority from the Quran and Sunna.[951] The Kingdom has adopted the Hanbali School to govern its laws.[952] Unlike most other Muslim countries, Saudi Arabia has not codified its law, despite increasing pressure to do so.[953] In Saudi Arabia, Shari’ah is the constitution of the state and the single formal source of political legitimacy.[954]
In Saudi Arabia, there is a 275-year history of adherence to the Wahhabi tradition, resulting in a differing interpretation of the Shari’ah than in other Muslim countries.
As, unlike many other Muslim countries, Saudi Arabia has not been subjected to over a century of Western colonisation,[955] the Kingdom instead relies solely on Shari’ah for its legal, cultural and religious teachings. So while in other countries, Shari’ah is merely a body of legal rules acting as an alternative to the statutory scheme already in existence, in Saudi Arabia, it is the primary law which binds all citizens in their everyday lives.[956]It is argued that the more closely Shari’ah is followed, the more it restricts women’s social mobility and rights.[957] This is the case in Saudi Arabia, as the only puritanical Kingdom that practises strict separation of the sexes,[958] and where the daily activities of women are highly regulated by Shari’ah. Saudi women are banned from driving and are legally subject to male chaperones for almost all public activities. Under Shari’ah, women are ‘imprisoned behind veils’, justified by men to control a woman’s sexual impulses.[959] Women are thus deprived of personal autonomy as well as the ability to express themselves and exercise their sexuality.
Vogel argues that restrictions on women in Saudi Arabia are more widespread and rigorous than what is required by Shari’ah, and that they instead ‘appear to have evolved through a cross-breeding of fiqh rules with local customs and traditions’.[960]
Saudi Arabia has ratified four of the United Nations Human Rights treaties including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).[961] However, it has made both general and specific reservations to these treaties,[962] meaning their effect and enforceability in the Kingdom are negligible, if effective at all.
In addition to these international instruments, Saudi Arabia has adopted various regional instruments and is a member of the Arab League. However, the effect of these instruments in promoting human rights is also questionable, as they have been criticised for being ‘so broad and vague as to give Member States only limited responsibility in their protection of human rights’.[963]
Authority in the family in Saudi Arabia is given to males over women and children.[964] This authoritarian relationship can be described by the term men’s qiwama, or guardianship.[965] Under Saudi administrative and family law, guardianship gives male relatives the legal power over almost every aspect of women’s lives, including their movements, work and children.[966] Saudi women thus need permission from a male relative to conduct everyday activities.[967] For this reason, opportunities for Saudi women can depend greatly on the men with whom they live, in terms of whether they are controlling and tyrannical or compassionate and progressive.[968]
While Saudi women have previously been deprived of the right to vote, drive and work with men, advancements have been made in these areas. Following a 2006 labour law provision, women can now work in a mixed workplace with men as opposed to being previously hidden away,[969] and in September 2011 the King announced that women would be able to vote in the 2015 municipal council elections.[970] Furthermore, various protests have been staged by women by driving vehicles in Saudi Arabia, and King Abdullah is trying to advance women’s legal status and rights in the Kingdom.[971]
A new development has occurred.
It was reported widely in September 2017 that the current Saudi King, Salman, had issued a decree giving women the right to drive for the first time from 2018. This would end a ban seen by human rights activists as an emblem of the conservative Saudi Arabia kingdom’s repression of women.[972] These progressions indicate an improvement in women’s rights in Saudi Arabia and support the view that ‘[h]owever regressive and traditionalist Saudi Arabia appears from outside, viewed internally the country seems to be on a path of rapid change and evolution’.[973]