Until now, Saudi judges have had wide discretion to issue rulings according to their own interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
Codification of the law and a reduction of the Saudi judges discretion would, one would expect, remove injustices such as the increase in the Qatif girl's sentence for publicising the injustice of the case.
What it would not do is remove the basic assumption that a man and a woman who are not related and are not married commit a crime by being alone together. Improvements can be made in the administration of justice in Saudi, however, Saudi law is based on Shari'a. While that is the case it will continue to regard zina (extramarital sex) and khwala (being alone with a male who is not a close relative) as crimes.
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