The Legal Basis for the Charge  Saudi Arabia has no written
penal code, code of criminal procedure, or code of judicial
procedure, allowing police and judges wide discretion in many
cases to determine what activities constitute criminal offenses
and what sentences such "crimes" deserve.12 Because there is no
constitutional court there is no way for an individual to
challenge a sentence without directly or indirectly appealing to
the king.13 The king and his appointed Council of Ministers have
near absolute authority to interpret written law, while the
government-appointed Council of Senior Religious Scholars has
final authority over interpretations of the Shari`a. The
Council's interpretations give precedence to the Hanbali school
of jurisprudence, especially as explicated by the fourteenth
century jurist Ibn Taymiya.14 The Hanbali school is considered
to be the most conservative of Sunni Islam's four schools of
jurisprudence.  All four schools of jurisprudence agree on three
main categories of crimes. Bounda