This year’s awards for making a significant contribution to Saudi-British relations were presented at the Annual Dinner on 10th February.
Dr. Ali Almihdar’s LLM PhD connections to the UK go back to his undergraduate days at Cambridge and his law practice in Jeddah has been very oriented to UK inward investment into the Kingdom, since the start in the 1970s, as I* can personally testify. His connections to the UK have developed to the point that he is the honorary legal adviser to the British Consulate in Jeddah. Even more unusually for a practising Saudi lawyer, he now spends a considerable amount of time practising at the English Bar in London. His PhD thesis on “Fairness in Contacts” will I am sure comment extensively on the equity concepts that underpin so much of English Common Law and will no doubt compare these with Sharia law. All in all, I would say that he is eminently deserving of recognition as someone who has contributed significantly over the years to Saudi British relations.
To read Dr. Ali Almihdar’s acceptance speech, click here.
Ms. Judy Houry MBE is the founder of Open Skies, Jeddah, a riding school for the disabled. The British Consul in Jeddah has commented: “ It would be a very well deserved award for Judy who has put in decades of work with children here in Jeddah – Saudi and expatriates. She has not been well herself recently, undergoing a period of chemotherapy, but is back on her feet again (although not much keeps her down for long). Wider details of her charity’s activities are available on www.openskiesjeddah.org
To read Judy Houry’s acceptance speech, click here.