The issuance of the defamation penalty is not limited to the courts only, but several bodies such as the Ministry of Commerce, the Central Bank, the Board of Grievances and others participate in the issuance of defamation penalties. The Undersecretary of the Saudi Central Bank for Supervision, Fahd Al-Shari, issued a circular to all banks, banks and financing companies operating in Saudi Arabia, applying the new amendments in the financing companies control system, which requires the imposition of penalties with fines, defamation, and the imposition of precautionary seizure for violators of the financing system.
According to the circular, the new amendments stipulated in Article 35 of the Finance Companies Control Law, by adding two paragraphs, stipulating the penalty – according to the severity of the violation – with a fine, the maximum of which does not exceed 2,000,000 riyals (two million riyals) or 10% of the amount of financing practiced by the violator – whichever is More, and imprisonment for a period not exceeding two years, or one of these two penalties, whoever violates any of the provisions of the system and its regulations, without prejudice to what is required by the system, and the amounts of the fine are transferred to the public treasury of the state, and the amendments granted the Central Bank of Saudi Arabia the authority to impose precautionary seizure on funds from Control of the availability of strong evidence for violating the provisions of the system, not exceeding the maximum amount of the fine or the stipulated percentage, until the competent court considers the violation and decides on it in accordance with the applicable legal procedures.
The amendments permitted defamation by including in the judgment imposing the penalty a provision to publish a summary thereof at the expense of the violator in a local newspaper or in any other appropriate means.
public punishments
Counselor in the Takamul Initiative for Legal Aid, Lawyer Dr. Alaa Al-Khuzami, said that the competent authorities made an amendment to the Anti-Harassment Law last year, which included adding a paragraph stipulating the permissibility of publishing details of the final judgment against the harasser in the media, as a paragraph was added to Article 6 of the Anti-Harassment Defamation Law In local newspapers at the expense of the convict, according to the gravity of the crime and its impact on society, provided that the defamation takes place after obtaining the final judgment, and the criterion for defamation is according to the facts of the crime, and this is determined by the judicial department, and the reference is made to what was stated in the second paragraph of Article Six of the Anti-Harassment Law, as it aggravated the penalty The harasser, which stipulates the following: The penalty for the crime of harassment shall be imprisonment for a period not exceeding five years, and a fine not exceeding three hundred thousand riyals, or one of these two penalties, and he may resort to defamation in the event of recurrence or in the event that the crime is associated with cases, including if the victim If the victim had a child, or the victim had special needs, or the perpetrator had direct or indirect authority over the victim, or if the crime occurred in a place of work, study, shelter, or care, or if the victim was asleep or unconscious, Or in the judgment of that, or if the crime occurred in any of the cases of crises, disasters or accidents, and defamation is not permissible except after the judgment acquires the final character, and the final decision in the gravity of the crime and its impact on society is due to the discretion of the court and the circumstances of each incident of harassment, and of course not every crime of harassment requires Defamation, and the victim must resort to the competent authorities and provide them with evidence or request it from the monitoring agencies, for example, otherwise he may be subject to the defamation penalty stipulated in the Information Crimes Law.
Does deter them fear of scandal?
Lawyer Lamis Hassan believes that the penalty for defamation of the harasser will undoubtedly limit the crime, because with the existence of laws and regulations, the person feels a great responsibility and fear of scandal through defamation, if defamation is added to the penalties in general, whether in crimes of harassment, commercial cover-up or commercial fraud, and also defamation of names Violating restaurants or otherwise, deterrence will be achieved more, and the violator will feel fear of penalties.
Lawyer Lamees emphasized that announcing and publishing penalties is part of prevention and protection and preventing people from going too far and being lenient in falling into misdemeanors and mistakes or assaulting others. She concluded by saying that defamation in the harassment system is permissible, not obligatory, and is according to the gravity of the crime and its societal impact, and is applied after the judgment acquires the final character. Whereas, in the Ministry of Commerce, it is customary to publish the names of violating commercial agencies, merchants, or citizens in crimes of commercial concealment or commercial fraud through the four names, but this is a reason for the four names to be similar at times, which embarrasses some.
In the first application… Defamation of a harasser
Saudi courts have officially started applying the penalty for defamation of harassers by mentioning the harasser’s name four times, with the prescribed punishment being published through the media, and the communication platforms witnessed controversy after a Saudi court decided to defame the name of a convict in a harassment case, in the first procedure of its kind, following amendments to the anti-harassment system. It allows defamation of convicts, and the text of the ruling included defamation of a citizen who harassed, verbally abused, and harassed a woman. The Criminal Court spent its time in Medina with imprisonment for 8 months and a fine of 5,000 riyals, and its sentence was published in the media.
Adnan Shabrawi (Jeddah) @Adnanshabrawi
