A Saudi woman has lodged a complaint with the National Society for Human Rights (NSHR) accusing a judge at the District Court in Madina of favoritism. The woman, identified only as S.A., allegedly said the judge rejected all the charges she had filed against the defendants thus leaving her no option but to approach the NSHR to help her in reopening the cases dropped by the judge. The woman claimed that the judge rejected the charges that she had filed against a woman who has been trying to undermine her marital life and poison her relationship with her husband by vying for her husband's affection. She alleged that the judge rejected all the charges she filed against the woman due to the close relationship between the judge and her husband's father who is acting as the lawyer of the defendant. Her husband, Faisal G., said his wife appealed to the NSHR when the District Court closed all the doors in her face because of his father's close relationship with the judge. In her complaint, S.A. said: “The District Court in Madina represented by the judge (….) did not do justice in the case she filed against H.G. in which she accused her of sowing seeds of discord between her and her husband's family pointing out that the defendant is a foreign divorcee desperately running after her husband to marry him in order to get the Saudi nationality.” S.A. said that she was left with no choice but to sue H.G. in a court of law especially when H.G.'s brother insulted her in the presence of her neighbors. She said the neighbors gave their testimony but her father-in-law used his influence to make the court hear the testimony of other witnesses including her husband's half-brothers and several minors alleging that the judge accepted their testimony and rejected the testimony of her neighbors. She further claimed that her father-in-law, who is also the defendant's lawyer, had insulted her during the court session, but the judge did not take any action against him even though he threatened to strip her of her Saudi nationality and send her and her family outside the country, adding “as if he were the proxy of the government.” She said she and her husband asked the judge to allow them to leave the court because they were being insulted, humiliated and degraded, but the judge refused and made them to stay until the end of the day's session. The complainant said one of the defendant's witnesses is her husband's half-brother who was reported to the court for breaking into her room with the intention of assaulting her. The judge, however, dropped the charges against him. S.A. also said that she filed a charge against her husband's younger half-brother for disconnecting the electricity, water, and telephone of her flat and locking the building's gate with chains to prevent her from going out. The husband's complaint added: “Regrettably, my father succeeded in using his influence to make the District Court cancel all the charges we brought against my half-brother and my cousin who attacked and insulted my wife,” stressing that all of these charges are punishable by law. “Thus we resorted to the NSHR to seek justice for us,” he said. Muhammad Al-Meghrafi, Chief of the District Court in Madina, said that in case the Ministry of Justice asks for a reply the plaintiff's complaint will be referred to the judge to answer it in preparation to send it once again to the concerned authorities in the ministry.
