Women given more rights in Saudi courts

Saudi Arabia has bowed to demands by women to cancel a long-standing condition requiring females to bring a male acquaintance to identify them in courts.

Under a new law passed by the Gulf kingdom recently, women can now be identified in courts either by their identity cards or by unveiling their faces to the judge.

“Judges at courts no longer need to ask women to bring a man to identify them…they can either ask women to take their face veil off or produce their IDs,” said Nassir Al Oud, an adviser at the Saudi justice ministry.

He said the new decision followed problems involving impersonation and reluctance by women to bring a male identifier to court.

“Women insisted on the need to approve their ID in court since it is a national document and no party has the right to reject it,” he told the Saudi Al Arabiyya news network.

[Homepage Image courtesy: Shutterstock]

Follow Emirates 24|7 on Google News.