Procedures
Sharia courts of general jurisdiction, with a new codified civil law
The general courts apply sharia and, since 2023, the first codified Civil Transactions Law in the kingdom's history. Before that, judges decided contract and tort directly from fiqh, with no code to cite.
Key rules
- Jurisdiction — General courts, appeal courts and the Supreme Court, plus specialised commercial and labour courts. The Board of Grievances hears administrative claims against the state.
- Deadline — 30 days to appeal a first-instance civil judgment
- Deadline — 30 days to file an objection to an enforcement order
Governing law
- Civil Transactions Law 2023 (Royal Decree M/191) — the kingdom's first civil code
- Law of Civil Procedure 2013Royal Decree M/1
- Law of the Judiciary 2007Royal Decree M/78
- Enforcement Law 2012Royal Decree M/53
In practice
The 2023 Civil Transactions Law is the single most important change in Saudi private law in living memory, because it converted an area governed by judicial reasoning from fiqh into an area governed by an enacted code of about 720 articles. Anyone working from pre-2023 material is working from a different legal system. Precedent has historically had weak formal force, and although the Supreme Court now publishes principles and the codification pushes toward consistency, the expectation of binding stare decisis should not be imported. The Enforcement Law and its dedicated enforcement judges are what actually make judgments collectable.