February 21, 2010

Saudi Arabia is expected to pass a new law in the next couple of days that will allow female lawyers to argue legal cases in court for the first time. Under the new law, they will be allowed to argue cases on family-related issues like divorce and child custody. Currently, female lawyers are only allowed to work behind the scenes in government and court offices. I'm glad some progress is being made, but it's interesting female lawyers are only allowed to be trial lawyers for family-related cases. I assume this is probably seen as more of a "female-acceptable" field of law. Maybe they think that criminal law or corporate law is just too big for women, or out of their league, or they need to be protected from it...

The new law is also supposed to allow women to complete certain judicial procedures with notaries without the presence of a witness. Now they can complete the procedures by just presenting their IDs. Some of these judicial procedures include registration of properties, housing plans, merging of real estate properties of different persons, classification of property ownership, and authorizing corporate contracts. The new law is intended to break routine barriers that obstruct women from approaching notaries.

Saudi Arabia has a system of male guardianship in which women are required to be kept separate from men they are not related to unless they have a male (family) guardian present or permission from a guardian. Women are required to wear a veil in public, they are not allowed to drive, and women under the age of 45 must get permission from a male when they travel. Education and employment are also dependent on male guardianship. However, there has been some progress made recently. For example, women are now allowed to stay in hotels unaccompanied. In addition, a senior cleric was removed last year after criticizing a new co-ed science and technology university. He said that mixing sexes in any university is evil and a great sin. (Full Story)