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Monthly Digest

Decree Monthly Digest – August 2023

Decree Monthly Digest is a summary of the most significant updates on Decree in the previous month.

Decree Intel

Decree Intel was launched providing explanatory notes, overviews of government entities, and summaries of Supreme Court cases and MJLA Fatwas to Decree subscribers. You can learn more about this in our announcement post.

Royal Decrees

No royal decrees were published in the Official Gazette in the month of August.

Ministerial Decisions

Five ministerial decisions were published in the Official Gazette during this month, with the most significant ones being MEM’s Amendment to the Executive Regulation of the Mining Law, MOH’s decision Specifying Medicines that May be Dispensed without a Prescription, EA’s Regulation on Environmental Permits, and SMEDA’s new SME Financing Regulation.

Events

Applications are still open for the Middle East School on Internet Governance co-hosted by Decree.

Blog Updates

Our blog featured two posts by Mohammed Al-Farsi titled “New Omani Labour Law: 5 Employee Rights and 5 Employer Rights” and “Banned Barbie: Censorship Law in Oman“, along with a guest post by Duniya Al-Nabhani titled “Protection of the Rights of the Disabled under Omani Law“, a guest post by Bassam Al-Balushi titled “Biotechnology: Ethical Dilemma and Financial Issues“, a guest post by Adeeb Al-Mazroui titled “Smart Homes and Privacy Risks“, and a guest post by Faris Al-Said titled “Ranked Choice Voting: A Missed Opportunity in the New Shura Elections Law“.

Other News

Decree signed an MOU with the Omani Lawyers Association to provide special subscription rates for small and medium Omani law firms.

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Guest Post

Ranked Choice Voting: A Missed Opportunity in the New Shura Elections Law

This guest blog post is contributed by Faris Al-Said – Philosophy and Politics Graduate.

With the promulgation of the newly revised Majlis Al-Shura Elections Law, the country has taken steps forward towards a more robust framework for the elections of Majlis Al-Shura. The addition of detailed provisions for electronic voting will hopefully increase the accessibility of voting polls and puts it at the tip of our fingers, while the Electoral Grievance Committee will provide candidates as well as voters with a mechanism to voice grievances. This new law is a noteworthy legal development, but it still missed an opportunity to further improve voter representation through the introduction of ranked choice voting.

Continue reading “Ranked Choice Voting: A Missed Opportunity in the New Shura Elections Law”
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Law Updates

SMEDA Issues New SME Financing Regulation

The Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (SMEDA) published in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette a new SME Financing Regulation that replaces the SME Financing Regulation of 2022.

Continue reading “SMEDA Issues New SME Financing Regulation”
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Student Article

Smart Homes and Privacy Risks

This student article is written by Adeeb Al-Mazroui, Law Student at Sultan Qaboos University College of Law, under the supervision of Dr Saleh Al-Barashdi. This article is part of a series of student articles published on Decree in collaboration with Sultan Qaboos University College of Law to showcase the legal academic writing of Omani law students.

When the term “Smart” is used, this usually means that a device is capable of making the life of its user easier. In the context of “smart homes”, this simply refers to a home equipped with connected appliances with software controls.[i] These connected devices may allow the user to control them through a mobile device while being away from the home by communicating with the devices and the servers that are linked to them.

These connected devices can put the privacy of their users in danger, as it might be possible to access the data of the user by third parties, especially in cases where the technical protection applied to the connection is not sufficiently strong. Given that privacy is recognised as a fundamental human right of great significance—as recognised by various domestic, regional, and international documents,[ii] there is a great incentive for scientists and specialists to improve the technologies used to protect this fundamental right.

This article aims to illustrate and analyse some key risks to the use of smart homes and attempts to identify reasonable solutions to mitigate such risks.

Continue reading “Smart Homes and Privacy Risks”
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Law Updates

EA Overhauls Environmental Permits Framework

The Environment Authority (EA) published in this week’s issue of the Official Gazette Decision 107/2023 Issuing the Regulation Governing Environmental Permits that provides a new simplified framework for obtaining environmental permits for all commercial activities.

Continue reading “EA Overhauls Environmental Permits Framework”
Categories
Student Article

Biotechnology: Ethical Dilemma and Financial Issues

This student article is written by Bassam Al-Balushi, Law Student at Sultan Qaboos University College of Law, under the supervision of Dr Saleh Al-Barashdi. This article is part of a series of student articles published on Decree in collaboration with Sultan Qaboos University College of Law to showcase the legal academic writing of Omani law students.

Biotechnology has been defined by many researchers in different ways, but the most common definition is applying technology to living organisms.[1] This field is a wide sea with lots of interesting caves, some of which we have already explored while others are yet to be discovered. Although biotechnology is filled with fertile soil for opportunities, it most of the time ends up in a two-case scenario: either a financial loss or an ethical dilemma.

Continue reading “Biotechnology: Ethical Dilemma and Financial Issues”
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Announcements

Decree Signs MOU with the Omani Lawyers Association

Decree signed last week a memorandum of understanding with the Omani Lawyers Association (OLA) to cooperate in the fields of legal awareness and access to legislation. Under this MOU, Decree will collaborate with OLA in organising legal awareness events in Arabic and English, will provide special rates for subscribing to Decree to small Omani law firms not practising in association with a foreign law firm, and will provide members of OLA the opportunity to advertise on Qanoon.

The special Decree subscription rates offered to small Omani law firms under this MOU are available until the expiry of the MOU in August 2025.

Categories
Law Updates

MEM Amends Executive Regulation of Mining Law to Include a Chapter on Social Contribution

The Ministry of Energy and Minerals (MEM) issued in this week’s Official Gazette Ministerial Decision 36/2023 Amending Some Provisions of the Executive Regulation of the Mining Law. These amendments include provisions on social contribution under a new chapter numbered Fivebis.

Mining licensees are now obligated to contribute 1% of their total annual production for local community development. This amount, calculated and collected by MEM, is passed to the Ministry of Finance within five working days and subsequently allocated every three months to the development budgets of the offices of the governors. It should be noted that in the event that the licence area includes more than one region, the social contribution is disbursed based on the assessment of the governor depending on the need of the region.

The amendments state that social contribution amounts are earmarked for sustainable and local community-based projects, which include supporting youth activities and environmental projects.

The amendments entered into force on 14 August 2023.

You can read the amendments in full in English on the link below:

Amendments to Some Provisions of the Executive Regulation of the Mining Law
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Announcements

Applications Open for the Middle East School on Internet Governance in Muscat

We are delighted to announce that Decree will be co-hosting, along with Sultan Qaboos University, the Middle East School on Internet Governance (MEAC-SIG). This event is organised by ICANN, the Internet Society, and RIPE NCC. It will take place in Muscat for the very first time in December 2023.

MEAC-SIG is a unique hybrid course on internet governance targeting lawyers, techies, and policymakers from various sectors including the government, private sector, academia, the technical community, and civil society. It covers a range of internet governance topics, encompassing both policy and technical aspects. In addition to providing an overview of how the internet functions, this year’s MEAC-SIG will also cover geopolitics and internet governance, internet public policy, internet fragmentation, human rights, cybersecurity and encryption, privacy and data protection, as well as content regulation.

MEAC-SIG this year will be conducted in a hybrid format where online sessions will be conducted in October and November 2023, followed by a 3-day in-person event in Muscat in December where participants who successfully complete the online course from across the Middle East and adjoining countries will come to Muscat.

MEAC-SIG will be conducted exclusively in English.

We are delighted to have contributed to bringing this exceptional course to Oman, and hope to see many of you register to participate in this event.

The participants of the programme will be selected on the basis of their background with a view to maximizing the diversity of the participants. Only individuals who successfully complete the online component of the course will receive invitations to attend the offline component taking place in December.

Applications for MEAC-SIG will close on 3 September 2023. For more information and the application link, please visit the MEAC-SIG website.

Categories
Announcements

Launching Decree Intel

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.

Continue reading “Launching Decree Intel”