Page 78 - The Arabian Gulf States_Neat

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16 THE LEGAL STATUS OF THE ARABIAN GULF STATES
have no regular procedure laws in the modern sense and their con­
: ditions arc generally unsatisfactory. The courts apply the laws and
regulations passed by the Rulers from time to time, when occasion
arises. In commercial disputes, which constitute the bulk of civil cases,
the judges are assisted by specially appointed committees of merchants’,
called Majlis al-Tijarah, which settle disputes according to commercial
custom and local tradition.1 Although in Qatar ShaiTah law has been
followed rather strictly in various disputes, the very harsh punish­
ments like chopping off hands for stealing have long been replaced by
prison terms.2 However, in recent years the promulgation of some
modern civil and criminal codes, usually administered by civil
judges, has restricted the application of ShaiTah law to matters of
A
family and personal status. Similarly, in Bahrain Shari'ah law is
more strictly administered in disputes relating to family and personal
status.
) The Trucial Shaikhdoms
In the seven Shaikhdoms of Trucial Oman there is very little in the
way of modern or organised administration. Generally, these Shaikh­
doms still remain backward and the people's nomadic life seems to
have changed very little.3 The Rulers' administration is patriarchal;
they adjudicate in disputes among their peoples and dispose of their
governmental functions on a personal basis. However, exception must
be made in the case of the Shaikhdom of Dubai, lying to the cast of
Abu Dhabi, which has developed, in recent years, an administrative
machinery. Accordingly, there arc today departments for customs,

1 In October 1954 a British Judicial Adviser, Mr G. L. Peace, was appointed
by the Ruler of Bahrain to assist the lay judges of the courts on legal matters,
especially on the interpretation and application of the newly promulgated laws
which aspire to British legal principles. Mr Peace was succeeded after some years
by a British barrister, Mr D. Humphreys, who, in turn, left the post sometime in
1962, as a result of differences with the Government over the extent of his authority
in the courts. He has been succeeded by his Assistant who appears to have been
able to accommodate himself to the generally static conditions of the courts. In
addition to the Judicial Adviser, the Government has recently appointed a number
of experienced Jordanian judges to assist the lay judges in entertaining eases in
courts. For a fuller account of the historical development of the courts, sec Bel-
grave’s Report on the Judiciary in the Bahrain Government Annual Report, 1956.
2 Information about the administration of justice in Qatar was supplied by Sayyid
Ahmad al-Mulla, then Assistant Adviser to the Government of Qatar, in May
1959. And see Hay, op. cit., p. 110. In recent years, an Egyptian lawyer. Dr H.
Kamel, has been appointed a Legal Adviser. He has helped greatly in the codifica­
tion of new laws, though they are rarely applied in practice.
a It may be of interest to note, in this connection, Lord Asquith’s observation
in the Abu Dhabi Award that ‘it would be fanciful to suggest that in this very
primitive region there is any settled body of legal principles . . .’ See Petroleum
Development (Trucial Coast) Ltd. v. The Shaikh of Abu Dhabi (1951), I.C.L.Q.,
1 (1952), p. 247. And sec Marlowe, J., op cit., p. 121.