Interim Measure

An interim measure is a temporary court order issued to protect a threatened right or preserve an existing situation until the underlying dispute is decided, without deciding the merits. In the Saudi system it takes the form of "urgent judiciary" (qada' musta'jal), regulated by the Law of Civil Procedure, and "precautionary attachment" (hajz tahaffuzi), regulated by the Execution Law. Article 205 of the Law of Civil Procedure provides that the court competent for the merits rules provisionally on urgent matters that risk being lost with time, whether the request is filed on its own or alongside the main case. Under Article 206 urgent claims include inspection to record a condition, travel bans, protecting or restoring possession, stopping new works, receivership, daily wages, and anything else the law treats as urgent; the appearance period is 24 hours. For precautionary attachment, the Execution Law allows a landlord to request attachment of movables or produce inside the leased premises as security for rent due, provided the right is apparent and due, the applicant provides a solvent guarantor or security, and he files the substantive claim within ten days, failing which the attachment lapses. The royal decree issuing the new Execution Law (1447H) keeps the previous law's precautionary-attachment provisions in force until they are moved into the Law of Civil Procedure. The practical value is speed. Urgent judgments carry provisional enforcement, a challenge does not suspend them, and the appeal period is only ten days. In real estate they are used to record a unit's condition before repairs, halt neighbouring construction that harms a property, place the income of a disputed building under receivership, or attach a tenant's movables that may be spirited away. They do not settle ownership or entitlement, and the applicant bears compensation if he turns out not to be in the right.