Fatimah Al Dubais

Okaz/ Saudi Gazette

RIYADH — Rent contracts not registered in the Ejar e-service network are administratively and legally ineffective, Saudi Press Agency (SPA) quoted the Minister of Justice and Chairman of the Higher Judicial Council Sheikh Dr. Waleed Bin Muhammad Al-Samaani as stressing in a judicial circular directed to all courts.

This is in accordance with the Council of Ministers Decision No.292 dated Feb. 13, 2017 (corresponding to Jumad Al-Awwal, 1438H), stating that rent contracts not registered in the electronic system will be deemed incorrect and ineffective from the administrative and judicial perspectives.

In his circular, the Minister of Justice directed all courts to take this into consideration in all cases related to this matter, for contracts signed after Jan. 10, 2019 (corresponding to Jumad Al-Awwal 4, 1440H).

Last year, the ministries of justice and housing had launched the “Ejar electronic network” that provides many e-services to parties to rent contracts. These include attestation of contracts and online payment, among others.

This system makes it compulsory for all real estate middlemen Kingdomwide to register and attest the unified rent contract in the Ejar e-service network. This makes such a rent contract a legal, effective and implementable document.

Meanwhile, judicial sources have disclosed to Okaz Arabic daily that since the inception of labor courts by the minister over two months ago, these courts have issued many verdicts in absentia against a number of companies due to their negligence in not attending the court sessions. This is despite summoning them via the electronic media.

The source said that many of these verdicts are non-appealable, as they are among the easy cases decided by the Higher Judicial Council to be non-objectionable. They are cases in which the demanded amount does not exceed SR20,000, demand for experience certificate, demand for documents belonging to the worker but kept by the employer, objection to decisions by the Domestic Workers’ Committee and the like.

These can be described as cases claiming grievance against employer or workers in which the claim does not exceed SR20,000.

The source said earlier when the defendant does not attend the court session, the case is postponed several times. However, with the launching of labor courts and using electronic means to summon the plaintiff and defendant, the court might issue its verdict from the very first court session.

The reason is that labor cases must be looked into without delay, in line with the rules of the Labor Law in Saudi Arabia. — With inputs from SPA