The Ministry of Justice is to set up offices for out-of-court settlements at some General and District Courts with a view to eventually extending the so-called ‘reconciliation offices' to all courts in the Kingdom. The move will help address a chronic backlog of lawsuits in the country's courts. Judicial offices would pass private lawsuits on to the reconciliation offices to bring disputing parties together and reach agreement, a judicial source said. A binding out-of-court settlement would then be issued followed by a legal ruling on it from the sitting judge. Reconciliation office sittings are expected to last between 45 minutes and one hour, with opportunities for return sittings if no agreement can be reached. If no agreement can be reached after repeated sessions, then the case goes before the District Court President and the Supervisor General for the dispute to take its judicial course.
