Article 1 of the Saudi Anti-Corruption Authority Law

This is the Law's definitions article, explaining what the words that recur in its articles mean wherever they appear. The definitions are:

• The Law: the Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority Law.
• The Authority: the Oversight and Anti-Corruption Authority.
• The President: the President of the Authority.
• The Unit: the Criminal Investigation and Prosecution Unit.
• Public bodies: ministries, government centers, authorities, departments, public institutions, bodies with independent public legal personality, or any other public entity.

The most important of these definitions is that of public bodies, because it fixes the scope of the administrative oversight the Authority exercises. Note that the definition is broad: it is not limited to ministries but includes authorities, public institutions and independent bodies, and ends with the phrase "any other public entity" so that no public entity falls outside the scope because of its name.

The definition of the Unit is also important, because wherever the word "Unit" appears in the Law it means specifically the Criminal Investigation and Prosecution Unit.

This article is followed by Article 2, which sets out the crimes that count as corruption crimes for the purposes of applying the Law: bribery, assault on public funds, abuse of authority, and any other crime that is stated to be a corruption crime under a law.