Comparative Law 101
For those who want a deeper dive into the very first item in Troy's excellent Week in Review, there's a great write-up at Lowering the Bar, which reports on the latest decree by the Saudi King, who has been trying "to drag that country firmly into the 17th century." Apparently the King:
has overturned the punishment handed out to Shaima Jastaina, convicted of the unholy crime of "driving without permission" in July. Jastaina had been sentenced to be lashed 10 times for defying the (unwritten) ban on female driving.
The sentence was handed out the day after King Abdullah said - if you can believe this - that women would actually be allowed to vote and even hold office, at least at the municipal level, as early as 2015. (Abdullah is 87 now, so maybe he expects to be dead by then.) The ruling in Jastaina's case was widely seen as "payback" for the king's ultra-radical announcement.
Dozens of women have dared to drive in Saudi Arabia over the past few months, most of them with Satan openly riding along in the passenger seat. (He likes to stick his head out the window.) A number of them were arrested for doing so and at least one of them will shortly be appearing before the same prosecutor who heroically ordered a woman to be whipped. Will Abdullah continue to spare the lash? Probably, but stay tuned.
This made my think of those liberal Supreme Court Justices who insist that the Constitution must be made to harmonize with foreign law; that is, our Constitution must be periodically updated to conform with "international opinion." Any chance that the liberals will add Saudi Arabia to the scales when measuring the weight of international opinion? But seriously (sort of) - why not? Saudi Arabia is not a backwater. It has per capita GDP over $24,000; more than, say, Portugal, which is a member of the EU, and is thus worthy of liberal regard. Oh well, I'm guessing Justices Kagan and Sotomayor will not be too keen on the Saudi interpretation of the Equal Protection Clause.
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Comparative Law 101
Well who else is going to drive Saudi men home when they're drunk? Really, it should be required that they chaffeur their men around. In Qadaffi-designed uniforms.
Got my finger on the pulse of Arab culture.