The couple who was forcibly divorced by an Al-Jouf court, and then reunited by a recent Riyadh High Court ruling, will not sue the Justice Ministry or any other government department for the four years of separation they had to endure. Mansour Al-Taimani and Fatima Al-Azzaz were forced to divorce because of their alleged social incompatibility. The divorce was sought by Al-Azzaz's family. “My wife and I have decided not to go after anybody for the damage incurred during our four-year separation,” said Al-Taimani, denying media reports of his intention to sue the government. “We haven't even discussed it with our lawyer,” he added. Al-Taimani said the Al-Jouf Emirate told him that he would “soon” be able to officially take his wife and their baby boy Suleiman from the social protection home in Dammam. The Emirate said it would order the Al-Jouf Police Department to execute the High Court's ruling and allow him to take his family back and live together again, he said. A human rights activist said that she had followed the case and kept in close contact with the couple until justice was delivered. “They couldn't believe their ears when they heard about the High Court's ruling to reunite them. It was a rite of passage for them,” said Fawzia Al-Ouyni. Last week, the High Court overturned a verdict passed by the Al-Jouf Court four years ago that had ordered the separation of the Saudi couple on the grounds that the husband was of an ‘inferior' social status. The case has been widely reported in the local and international media. The couple had been married in 2003, with the consent of Al-Azzaz's father, as required under Saudi law. However, when her father died, her half brothers approached the court in Al-Jouf to dissolve the marriage, arguing that her husband, Al-Taimani, was of a so-called inferior class. Al-Azzaz refused to divorce her husband because she claimed that her brothers were using this argument as a pretext to get control of her property. However, the Al-Jouf court had ruled in favor of her brothers.
