You know, some systems of law are really better than others

If there is one thing that is easy to criticize about Islamic law, it is its treatment of women. For instance, rape is seldom punished because unless further witnesses corroborate the victim's story, the victim will be punished - severely - for adultery, having confessed to engaging in sexual activity but failed to prove unwillingness or a perpetrator. There is thus a strong disincentive to raising the matter at all.

This week, however, a Saudi court proved that even reaching a conviction isn't enough. In this case, a woman managed to secure the conviction of the men that gang-raped her 14 times one afternoon. Although the "up to ten years" they will be spending in Saudi prisons are surely no joke, this is a mere slap on the wrist for a country where swiping a wallet costs you a hand. However, the woman will be spending some time in the clink herself, as well as receiving 200 lashes. Turns out that in the process of testifying against the mass of defendants, she had to admit that she had *gasp* been in the car of a man not her relative (that was where she was raped - apparently scienter is not a critical element of the crime of being in a car with a man not your relative).

But women's rights and other substantive issues aside, there is another aspect of this case that indicates the trouble the Saudi legal system is in: as part of the appellate court's decision, they suspended the woman's attorney for undertaking the appeal. Not only do they have draconian punishments and a lack of substantive rights, but they punish those who attempt to stop (or just actively monitor) the railroading of these people. With such a disincentive to even run interference on the prosecution or level of punishment of anyone presupposed to be guilty, why even bother having a "justice" system?

It does illustrate, though, why the lawyers in Pakistan are so demonstratively upset about threats to the post-British legal system they have. They can see from their neighbors where the loss of a confrontational legal system leads.

Article here