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INTRODUCTION 15
Bahrain and Qatar.1 Justice in the national courts of the two Shaikh-
doms is administered on the directions of the Rulers who generally
promulgate laws by means of proclamations, decrees or notices which
have the force of law in courts. In addition, the Rulers have, in recent
years, agreed to adopt and apply in their own courts certain modern
ordinances and regulations which have been brought into force for the
British courts in both Shaikhdoms by means of British Orders in
Council, or Queen’s Regulations, as the case may be.2
Until 1956, codified criminal or civil laws were non-existent in the
two Shaikhdoms. In November 1956 a penal code, or a limited por­
tion of it, was put into operation in Bahrain. This was followed by a
labour code which was applied in 1957. Apart from the technical and
legal deficiencies involved in these codes, they are, in any case, only
partially applied.3 Concerning Qatar, legal reforms did not start until
1962-3, when progress towards the promulgation of a number of
criminal and civil codes was made. Consequently, there are now a
labour law and criminal and civil codes with civil and criminal pro­
cedure regulations. For the application of the labour law a labour
court has been established to try disputes regulated by the labour law,
irrespective of the nationality of the parties to such disputes.4
The local courts in Bahrain and Qatar are usually staffed by judges
from the ruling families, with no legal qualifications whatsoever. They

ment delivered on 1 June 1960; The Times, 14 June 1961; The Guardian, London,
14 June 1961; The Observer, 18 June 1961; Thornburg, Max Weston, People and
Policy in the Middle East, New York (1964), p. 104; Marlowe, J., The Persian Gulf
in the Twentieth Century, London (1962), p. 199. And see 'Abd al-Rahman al-
Bakcr’s own account of the episode in his book Min al-Bahrain Ela al-Manfa
(From Bahrain to Exile), Beirut (1965).
1 See above, p. 10.
2 For clear examples of such ordinances and regulations, sec Persian Gulf
Gazette, op. cit., Suppls. 1-32 (1952-61).
3 According to Sir Charles Belgravc, ‘until 1956, no criminal or civil codes had
been formally adopted, but the Senior Bahrain Court moulded its procedure on
the Sudan Penal Code, which was based on the Indian Penal Code. In November,
1956, portions of the Criminal Code which had been drafted for use in Bahrain
became law.’ Sec Bahrain Government, Annual Report, 1956.
The following arc the main body of codified laws existing in Bahrain: The
Bahrain Penal Code, June 1955; The Bahrain Labour Ordinance, November 1957;
The Bahrain Employed Persons Compensation Ordinance, November 1957; The
Bahrain Patents, Designs and Trade Marks Ordinance, July 1955. There is even
today no civil law in Bahrain. Civil law is, therefore, dependent on the collection
of proclamations, ordinances and notices issued by the Ruler over the last 35 years.
The collection, which deals with various civil matters, suffers greatly from incon­
sistencies, anachronism and bad drafting. Sec Majmuat Al-Qawanin Wal-E'lanaat
(Collection of Laws and Notices), dated 19 Thu al-Q'adah, 1377 (7 June 1958).
4Europa Publications, op. cit., pp. 536-8; Statement of the Chairman of The
British Bank of the Middle East for the year 1963, The Times, 11 March 1964;
Hay, op. cit., 109-10.