The king of Saudi Arab has "waived" a sentence of 60 lashes imposed on TV journalist Rozanna al-Yami, a government official 
announced yesterday. Ms Yami, 22, was thought to have been the first Saudi journalist sentenced to flogging in connection with her work.

The case arose out of an LBC TV programme last July which caused shockwaves in the conservative kingdom when the "
Casanova of Jeddah" boasted on air about his sexual exploits. Ms Yami was accused of helping to prepare the programme and advertising it on the internet.

On the king's orders, she and another woman journalist will now be referred to a committee of the information ministry which deals with media violations.

So far so good, but as the blogger Saudi Jeans points out, "this should have happened without a royal intervention".

It's very similar to another high-profile case a couple of years ago when, after a woman was sentenced to 200 lashes for being gang-raped at knife point, the king stepped in and issued a pardon. As I commented at the time, such cases follow a not-unfamiliar pattern in Saudi Arabia: 

... the courts do something stupid, there's uproar in the media (primarily the western media), the Saudi elite (especially its diplomats) is embarrassed, and eventually the king intervenes.

The trouble with the royal prerogative, though, is that it's every bit as arbitrary as the system that gives rise to these cases in the first place. And there are plenty of disgusting judgments where the palace does not intervene - as with the unfortunate Egyptian who was executed for witchcraft a few weeks ago.

The real need is for wholesale reform of the justice system but that would mean confronting the kindgom's religious establishment - and it's one nettle that King Abdullah seems reluctant to grasp.

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 27 October 2009.