First Article of the Saudi Commercial Courts law:Critical and Analytical View

Abstract

The First Article of theSaudiCommercial Court Law is considered as one of the most important substantive articles of the Commercial Law, as it defines the merchant that forms the pillar of commercial activity. Given the importance of this Article, absence of previous literature thereon, and as the mentioned law has been issued since 1350 AH, the accuracy of this Article has been checked, and whether it is adequate for the purpose of which it was drafted or is insufficient, as well as the proposed alternative version in that case.To answer the research question, the researchersfollowed the analytical and critical approach by analyzing the first Article, and the Saudi Commercial Court Law and related laws as required by the study.The researcher reached a number of results, the most important of which is that the first Article of the Commercial Court Law is insufficient, like many articles of this law, as it did not meet requirements of the merchant's status, since it mentioned only two conditions out of four conditions for the merchant's status.Therefore, for the importance of this Article and its implications and obligations, as it puts a person in a different legal position from others, the researcher made, at the end of this research, a number of recommendations, the most important of which is to the necessity to redraft the first Article of the Law because it is insufficient, in a draft that meets all conditionsfor having the merchant status.