Decree BlogRiyadh is the CEO at Decree. Prior to co-founding Decree, Riyadh worked for over 16 years of as a lawyer for the government of Oman. His areas of subject matter expertise include public international law, technology law, and intellectual property. He holds an LLB from the University of Cardiff, an LLM in IT and Commerce from Southampton University, and a PhD from SOAS, University of London. Riyadh is also a co-founder of Open Data Oman.
We are delighted to announce today the launch of Decree Intel—a database of original Omani legal research material developed in-house by Decree that provides explanatory notes, overview of government entities, and summaries of Supreme Court cases and MJLA Fatwas.
The long-awaited new Omani Labour Law is finally out. The new law makes many substantive changes to the way employment is regulated: From the scope of its application and employee rights, to collective bargaining and employment dispute resolution. The law was issued only a few hours ago, and it will take everyone a bit of time to fully digest the extent of the changes introduced by this law.
The School Education Law that was issued last month is a substantive piece of legislation that covers all aspects of school education: from the establishment of schools and the admission of students, to the rights and duties of faculty staff. An interesting provision in this key Omani law is found in article 77 stipulating that the Ministry of Education owns copyright over the books and curriculums prepared by the ministry. This is a deviation from article 4(a) of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Law which excludes official government documents from copyright protection. This new provision in article 77 of the School Education Law will limit the ability of teachers, students, and parents to fully utilise these textbooks without providing any benefits to the Ministry of Education.
The Ministry of Commerce, Industry, and Investment Promotion issued a new decision in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette that aims to simplify investment procedures and provide facilities to Omani and non-Omani investors by providing an integrated system for obtaining all approvals, permits, and licences for any investment project through the Investment Services Centre in the new Invest in Oman Lounge.
Under this new integrated system, it will be possible to obtain all government approvals, permits, and licences, irrespective of the entity from whom the approval, permit, or licence is required, from the Investment Services Centre. Government entities will be required to provide representative staff available at the Investment Services Centre with the authority to issue such approvals, permits, and licences.
This new decision has entered into force today, but it is not clear when exactly the actual integrated services will be ready to be offered at the Invest in Oman Lounge.
You can read the decision in full in English on the link below:
Companies in Oman are permitted to own land and real estate in special situations as prescribed by Decision 45/2021 of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Planning. Under this decision, Omani and GCC-owned companies may own land and real estate by way of purchase if this is necessary for them to practise their licensed activity in regard to land and real estate designated for residential commercial, commercial, industrial, and touristic uses under the controls prescribed by Decision 45/2021. These rules were changed by Decision 102/2023 of MHUP published in today’s issue of the Official Gazette to allow companies to also purchase residential real estate units in integrated residential compounds.
This new decision enters into force tomorrow.
You can read MHUP’s new Decision 102/2023 and the old Decision 45/2021 in English in full on Decree.
Decree Monthly Digest is a summary of the most significant legislation issued in the previous month.
Nine royal decrees were published in May, with the most significant being Royal Decree 27/2023 Promulgating the Higher Education Law and Royal Decree 31/2023 Promulgating the School Education Law. Other noteworthy ones include royal decrees on renaming the Oman Botanic Garden, adopting the Organisational Structure of the Foreign Ministry, ratifying an Air Service Agreement with the Republic of Tajikistan, and approving the accession to the Protocol Supplementary to the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Seizure of Aircraft.
Eleven ministerial decisions were published in the Official Gazette during this month, with the most significant ones being the decision of the Targeted Financial Sanctions Committee to add names to the Domestic Terrorism List, MOCIIP’s decision to abolish the fees of some services, and APSR’s decision to issue the Regulation Governing the Activity of Charging Electric Vehicles.
Our blog featured a number of law updates on the new Higher Education Law, MJLA’s Updated List of Labour Law Judicial Enforcement Officers, the new School Education Law, and APSR’s EV Charging Regulation.
The Authority for Public Services Regulation has issued a new Regulation Governing the Activity of Charging Electric Vehicles to regulate the installation and operation of EV charging points.
A royal decree came out last week promulgating a brand new Higher Education Law that creates a holistic framework for governing higher education in Oman as opposed to the piecemeal approach found in the previous legal framework that governed private universities, private colleges, and scholarships separately.
The new Higher Education Law repeals the System of Private Universities of 1999, Royal Decree 42/99 regarding the Establishment of Private Colleges and Higher Institutes, and the Educational Scholarships, Grants, and Aid Law of 2002, and instead creates a unified approach for governing higher education in Oman. The new law regulates both public and private sector higher education establishments collectively and provides a general framework for higher education scholarships.
Even though this new law repeals three separate legal instruments, it is relatively short as it delegates many issues to the executive regulation, especially in regard to scholarship matters, which are now merely governed by four articles in this law.
Under the new law, a private higher education establishment is required to have its facilities ready for operation within a maximum period of 5 years and to have a board of trustees separate from its board of directors. The law prohibits the chairman of the board of directors to simultaneously hold the position of the chairman of the board of trustees of the university.
The royal decree promulgating the new Higher Education Law makes no reference to Royal Decree 67/2000, which granted certain exemptions and privileges to higher education establishments, and it is not clear if these provisions still apply or were implicitly repealed by the new law, which only makes mention of the tax exemption granted to higher education establishment for a period of five years renewable for an additional five years period.
The new Higher Education Law enters into force today. It can be read in full in English at the link below:
Decree Monthly Digest is a summary of the most significant legislation issued in the previous month.
Six royal decrees were published in April, with the most significant being Royal Decree 19/2023 Promulgating the Maritime Law and Royal Decree 23/2023 regarding the Marriage of Omanis to Foreigners. The remaining royal decrees involved an amendment to the Law on Combating Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropics Substances and the declaration of public benefit status for the construction of dams in Bawshar, Al-Kamil Wal Wafi, and Liwa.
24 ministerial decisions were published in the Official Gazette during this month, with the most significant ones being APSR’s Water and Treated Water Supply and Wastewater Collection and Transport Services Customers Welfare Regulation, APSR’s Regulation on Accident Notification in the Water and Wastewater Sector, MOCIIP’s Regulation Governing the Practice of the Activity of Consumer Cooperative, MOSD’s Governance Regulation for Practising the Profession of Psychological Counselling and Family Counselling, and MHUP’s Decision Granting Small and Medium Enterprises Usufruct Right to Lands Owned by the State.
Our blog featured a commentary article by Riyadh Al-Balushi titled “Is ChatGPT Legal Under Omani Law” exploring the relationship between copyright law and AI training, and an article by Mohamed Al-Tai titled “Five New Provisions in the Omani Maritime Law of 2023” outlining some of the key changes introduced by the new Maritime Law, along with a number of law updates on the new Maritime Law, APSR’s Accident Notification Regulation, APSR’s Water and Wastewater Customer Welfare Regulation, MOCIIP’s Consumer Cooperatives Regulation, and MOSD’s Psychological and Family Counselling Regulation.
The Ministry of Social Development issued a new Governance Regulation for Practising the Profession of Psychological Counselling and Family Counselling. This regulation replaces the Regulation for Private Counselling and Family Counselling Centres of 2013 and expands on the licensing requirements from a simple requirement to have the counselling centre licensed to a more comprehensive licensing requirement for each individual practitioner working in a counselling centre, in addition to the existing requirement to have the centre licensed as well.
The regulation provides a detailed procedure for obtaining the licence under several conditions, the most important being for the licence applicant to be an Omani or GCC national. The regulation makes a distinction between psychological counselling and family counselling, and provides different academic degrees and work experience requirements for licence applicants. Article 25 of the regulation provides for a mechanism to allow a visiting practitioner to provide services in the centre after the approval of the ministry, but it is not clear from the regulation if this is limited to Omani and GCC nationals.
The regulation entered into force on 26 April 2022, and existing centres have 6 months to comply with the regulation.
You can read the regulation in full in English on the link below: