Legal System of United Arab Emirates: Criminal Code, Court System and Unique Features

This law assignment discusses the legal system of United Arab Emirates including the criminal code, court system, unique features and more. It explores the dual nature of the judicial system, the penal code, prosecutor, court system, and the unique feature of the UAE criminal law system. It also compares the criminal law system of Canada and UAE. The article also highlights the importance of a sovereign legal system in attracting international investments.

Running head: ESSAY 0
Law Assignment
MARCH 11, 2019
STUDENT DETAILS:

ESSAY 1
The judicial system of UAE is centred on the British law, civil law system with
impacts from French law, Islamic law, Roman law and Egyptian law. Under the Constitution,
all States are permitted either to establish individual judiciary or to unite with federal court
systems. The judicial system of UAE had dual nature by way of this has federal court and
local court with then Supreme Court Based at Abu Dhabi. In the following parts, legal system
of United Arab Emirates, type of criminal code, prosecutor, court system, or structure in
United Arab Emirates and unique feature of UAE criminal law system is discussed and
critically examined.
It was declared by United Arab Emirates itself as self-regulating independent state
and start the procedure of making the central government that in turn has made the judicial
system to regulate central affairs. The Constitutional Amendment Law No.1 of 1996 had
finalised the provisional constitution with certain other amendments. The UAE Constitution
renders that Islam is the allowed religion and Arabic formal language of the United Arab
Emirates. The Constitution confines the powers of central government and every individual
state has retained powers over the personal inner affairs as long as the rules and regulations
do not conflict with the central law. As the result, there are levels of the judicial system in the
United Arab Emirates. The laws are therefore made and applied at the state level as well as
central level. In the simple word, it can be said that the central government is accountable for
the central policy, state’s affairs, learning, well-being, protection, international policies,
banking, and indemnification, transaction such as civil transaction and profitmaking
transaction and publication (Alhammadi, 2016).
The states are entitled to create rules and regulations in the fields that relevant to
themselves and in the fields in which the central government has not required to, or has yet to
apply the individual rules, regulations, and laws. These fields are diverse and wider ranging.
For an instance, the international possession of land is allowed in some chosen fields of

ESSAY 2
Dubai, in the leasehold deal as well as freehold deal. While in states of Abu Dhabi Freehold
property deals were not allowed at all for immigrants. However, in the present time, in the
past few years the leasehold properties sales (in chosen field only) have permitted in Abu
Dhabi. However, this is still not conceivable to purchase the freehold property (Bing & Al-
Mutawakel, 2018).
The penal code or criminal code refers to the document that accumulates all, or a
substantial amount of, the specific criminal law’s authority. Normally, the criminal code
would comprise crimes that are identified in the authorities, fines that may be levied for the
crimes and certain common requirements (Dayton & Takahashi, 2018). The criminal code is
comparatively general in the jurisdiction of civil law, which tend to create legal system
around principle and code that are comparatively abstract and apply them on the matter by
matter basis (Zimmer, 2015). On the other hand, they are unusual in the jurisdiction of
common law. The criminal code is usually supported for the overview of constancy to the
judicial system and for creating criminal law more manageable to the populations. The
criminal code can help ignore the chilling effects where the legislature and case laws appear
to be either unreachable or away from the understanding to the common people. Otherwise, it
is argued by the critics that the criminal code is too severe and that they fail to render the
sufficient suppleness for the rules, regulations, and laws to be proper.
As per the Article 121 of the Constitution of 1971 of United Arab Emirates, the
authority has been provided to the federation to apply the rules, regulations and laws in
respect of the penalty law’s main legislatures. The Penal Code of United Arab Emirates is the
set of lawful provisions to determine the activities that are identified as the crime and
describe the penalties levied on them. The Criminal Code involves two kinds of rules. The
first general requirements that is applicable to each crime and all fines like the requirements
related to the efficiency of the Criminal Code in respect of the period, place, legitimizations,

ESSAY 3
accountability, or the penalty preventatives and the categories of the fines and crimes.
Secondly, the provisions of all the crimes that describe the particulars and regulate the proper
penalties.
Further, as per the first article of the Federal Criminal Code of UAE, “Islamic Sharia
requirements must apply to the punishments, vengeance, and crime related to blood money.
Reprehension crime and fine is required to be decided as per the requirements of the Penal
Code and other criminal rules, regulations and laws.” In this way, the Federal Representative
stated to the Islamic Sharia requirements in the cases related to sentence, reprisal, and crimes
related to blood money. For that reason, the Federal Criminal Code was set to be limited to
decide the crime and censoriousness fines, and it adapts with Islamic Sharia method in
illegalisation and the sentence. (Padley & Clutterham, 2016).
As per amended Article 7 of the Criminal Procedures Law, the Public Prosecution has
limited jurisdiction to initiate and accuse the criminal proceeding. The public prosecution was
established to get the legal justice and fairness in regarding the public rights of the state. The
public prosecution also has the power to trace this until the final decision is given. The Public
Prosecution is considered as the part of legal body (Kaul, 2018). This assumes the
investigating authority and applying the fines, as well as discussing the suspected people to
the capable court in the case where their participation in the crime is proved. It also
undertakes the problems in respect of the renunciation of offenders and the follow-up
according with the foreign convention, in collaboration with foreign Criminal Police
(Hassanein, 2018).
The federal system of United Arab Emirates, in respect of legal order, is categorised
in the trial court, appeal court and the Supreme Court. The United Arab Emirates Federal
Supreme Court in Abu Dhabi, is the uppermost court in the central legal system. The United

ESSAY 4
Arab Emirates Federal Supreme Court is also usually known as the United Arab Emirates
Supreme Court of Cassation (Elwerfelli & Benhin, 2018). The appeal court in every
individual legal system seated in the single state has hear the appeal on the ruling from lower
court of the domestic state. The Federal Supreme Court has authority to decide various
matters such as, disputes amongst state member in the association, or among the states or
more and central government, examination of the legal status of the central law, examination
of constitutional status of the legislations, and inspection of the structure, legislation
generally. Additionally, the federal court is capable to arbitrate the dispute as discussed in
Article 102 of Constitution and every other dispute in the states that do not have the
individual legal system (Ahmed & Ghany, 2017).
Further, the State legal system is also divided in the trial court, appeal court and court
of cassation. The state legal system of Dubai, Ras Al-Khaimah and Abu Dhabi have the
individual courts of cassation, entirely separate and different from the United Arab Emirates
Federal Supreme Court of Cassation. The State judicial system have jurisdiction to arbitrate
dispute in the concerned state except that is reserved for central court (Johnsen, 2017).
The criminal law system of Canada and UAE is significantly different. It may
enhance the pressure and the issues rising from the arrest and sentence in UAE. For an
instance, there are no bond systems, no trial, and no lawyer for deposition. The Canadian
Government would look to make sure people are not fined for being the foreign person and
that people are neither differentiated against nor deprived of fairness because of the
citizenship of Canada. It cannot, however, seek preferential treatment for you or try to
exempt you from the due process of local law. The Canadian government may not impede in
a legal system of other nation, like people of Canada not stand for other government
interfering in legal procedure of Canada (Parreñas & Silvey, 2016).

ESSAY 5
The government of United Arab Emirates undoubtedly knows the significance of the
sovereign excellent legal system in appealing the international investments. Therefore, they
have followed various root-breaking procedures in this regard, and have made various
options for investor, to suit the different requirements and contexts. At the present, this is for
an investor to recognise, assess and know the appropriateness of the options and use them to
secure the interest in best possible manner.

ESSAY 6
References
Ahmed, R., & Ghany, A. (2017). Threat-The Role of Coercion under UAE Law. Ct.
Uncourt, 4, 11.
Alhammadi, M. S. (2016). Ambiguity and Conflict in the Implementation of Evidence Law in
Criminal Matters: a Study of the United Arab Emirates Jurisprudence. Asian Journal
of Criminology, 11(3), 155-178.
Bing, Z. Y., & Al-Mutawakel, O. (2018). Infrastructure developing and economic growth in
United Arab Emirates. Business and Economic Research, 8(1), 95-114.
Dayton, B., & Takahashi, S. (2018). Arbitration Developments in the United Arab
Emirates. Asian Dispute Review, 2018(1), 30-37.
Elwerfelli, A., & Benhin, J. K. A. (2018). Oil a blessing or curse: A comparative assessment
of Nigeria, Norway and the United Arab Emirates.
Hassanein, A. S. (2018). The Impact of Islamic Criminal Law on the Qatari Penal
Code. Arab Law Quarterly, 32(1), 60-79.
Johnsen, S. (2017). Social enterprise in the United Arab emirates. Social Enterprise
Journal, 13(4), 392-409.
Kaul, M. (2018). New Bankruptcy Law in the UAE. Ct. Uncourt, 5, 5.
Padley, M., & Clutterham, C. (2016). Common Pitfalls of Arbitration in the United Arab
Emirates: Interference and Enforcement. Journal of International Arbitration, 33(1),
83-98.
Parreñas, R.S. & Silvey, R. (2016) Domestic workers refusing neo-slavery in the
UAE. Contexts, 15(3), pp.36-41.

ESSAY 7
Zimmer, M. (2015). From the Executive Editor: Acknowledging Our Court System
Colleagues In Tunisia. International Journal for Court Administration, 7(1).