Harry99--Every country's legal system is imperfect with all sorts of odd, largely unenforced laws on the books. For example, the state of Missouri (in the US midwest, where I lived for a spell) had a law that had never been officially repealed that allowed citizens to kill Mormons. It was leftover from the 19th century and, obviously, no longer enforced; someone just happened to stumble across it. My point was just that age of a nation is not the best indicator of how just its legal system is.
Also, one could legitimately argue that Qatar's legal system has been evolving since the 7th century.
Happy Happy--I do not think the future of Qatar is all black. The current regime is clearly progressive and forward-thinking, particularly with regard to education and interaction with other nations. Any cultural and economic revolution, which is essentially what is happening here, is bound to endure conservative backlash, but the biggest problems Qatar faces is the disparity of distribution of wealth, human trafficking and the struggle for an identity and importance as nationals become an increasingly marginaized group. By the last I mean that the nationals essentially really only control the legal and political system and through this they have an artificial control over the economy and culture (i.e. Qatar depends on foreign contractors to produce, manage and secure much of its wealth, while it uses legal mechanisms to prevent a free market for business ownership, property ownership and advantages in employment--Qatarization--for nationals). This means that backlash against reforms will appear as tantrums in the legal system with such episodes of handing down tough sentencs to expats who flought cultural laws (without, of course, actually jailing the very Western professionals on whom the economy relies). It also means that Qatar has but a brief window for its national population to educate itself into greater self-sufficiency or suffer the same curse that virtually all single-resource-rich countries do.
Yes, Happy Canada's Day to you too, Nic!
Harry99--Every country's legal system is imperfect with all sorts of odd, largely unenforced laws on the books. For example, the state of Missouri (in the US midwest, where I lived for a spell) had a law that had never been officially repealed that allowed citizens to kill Mormons. It was leftover from the 19th century and, obviously, no longer enforced; someone just happened to stumble across it. My point was just that age of a nation is not the best indicator of how just its legal system is.
Also, one could legitimately argue that Qatar's legal system has been evolving since the 7th century.
Happy Happy--I do not think the future of Qatar is all black. The current regime is clearly progressive and forward-thinking, particularly with regard to education and interaction with other nations. Any cultural and economic revolution, which is essentially what is happening here, is bound to endure conservative backlash, but the biggest problems Qatar faces is the disparity of distribution of wealth, human trafficking and the struggle for an identity and importance as nationals become an increasingly marginaized group. By the last I mean that the nationals essentially really only control the legal and political system and through this they have an artificial control over the economy and culture (i.e. Qatar depends on foreign contractors to produce, manage and secure much of its wealth, while it uses legal mechanisms to prevent a free market for business ownership, property ownership and advantages in employment--Qatarization--for nationals). This means that backlash against reforms will appear as tantrums in the legal system with such episodes of handing down tough sentencs to expats who flought cultural laws (without, of course, actually jailing the very Western professionals on whom the economy relies). It also means that Qatar has but a brief window for its national population to educate itself into greater self-sufficiency or suffer the same curse that virtually all single-resource-rich countries do.