God’s Law, King’s Court Ḥudūd Jurisprudence under Saudi Monarchical Decrees
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Abstract
This article examines two significant developments in Saudi criminal law during 2018 and 2019 respectively: the abolition of al-ḥukm bi-l-shubha (criminal convictions based on doubt) and the abolition of al-taʿzīr bi-l-jald (discretionary flogging punishments). The King undertook these developments as part of a broader plan to overhaul the Saudi justice system. Considering their grounding in fiqh, analyzing these abolished practices yields key insights: the intricate elements of ḥudūd enforcement; the susceptibility of ḥudūd jurisprudence to interpretive variances that yield unpredictable judicial outcomes; the inadequacy of ḥudūd as a capping threshold for taʿzīr offenses; and the possibility of implementing broad measures to guide the enforcement of ḥudūd, which may eventually evolve or find parallels in other jurisdictions.