assistance other than deportation processing procedures following prison sentences. Only one of the defendants, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence for drug smuggling, said he met with a Pakistani consular official during his trial. Saudi Criminal Justice System Background criminal justice system for many years. system, such as it is, with a system based on the basic principles of the rule of law and international human rights standards. The violations derive from deficiencies both in code. Previous court rulings do not bind Saudi judges, and there is little evidence to suggest that judges seek to apply consistency in sentencing for similar crimes. Accordingly, citizens, residents, and visitors have no means of knowing with any precision what acts constitute a criminal offense. The Saudi criminal justice system imposes the death penalty after patently unfair trials in violation of international law and imposes corporal punishment in the form of public flogging, which is inherently cruel and degrading. Saudi law and practice are also inherently discriminatory. Saudi criminal procedures, which permit judges to shift roles between adjudicator and prosecutor, indicate that in practice there is no presumption of innocence for defendants. both judge and prosecutor. In all criminal cases, the judge can change the charges against the defendant at any time and, in the absence of a written penal code, it appears that judges in some cases set out to prove that the defendant has engaged in a certain act, which they then classify as a crime, rather than proving that the defendant has committed the elements of a specific crime as set out in law. In other cases, defendants recounted how a judge refused to proceed with a trial unless the defendant disavowed and withdrew a claim that his confession was extracted under torture, effectively holding the defendant hostage until he reaffirmed a confession obtained under duress. With exceedingly short notice before court hearings, defendants have little time to prepare their defense and often them and the specific charges under Saudi law. Detainees do not always have access to 5 MARCH 2018