Although Article 7 of the UAE 1971 Federal constitution states that the shari’a is the principal source of UAE law, the UAE legal system is essentially a civil law system on the Egyptian/French model comprising the ordinary civil / commercial, labour, personal status (i.e. family and inheritance) and criminal courts. Laws are enacted on a federal and local emirate level. Federal laws can be found in Arabic and English at https://uaelegislation.gov.ae/en/. The courts in each emirate apply Federal Laws and also laws enacted by the Ruler of the emirate.
Abu Dhabi, Dubai, and Ras al-Khaimah have separate judicial frameworks in additional to the federal system.
The UAE is currently engaged in a massive and well-resourced wide-ranging campaign of law reform across all aspects of the legal system.
The language of the Courts is Arabic and all non-Arabic documents to be submitted to the courts must be translated.
The doctrine of precedent (stare decisis) is not followed in the Middle Eastern tradition or in the civil law codified systems such as the UAE legal system. However, whilst not binding, decisions of superior courts can be cited in inferior courts and can be of persuasive value and the decisions of the Federal Supreme Court are effectively treated as precedent setting . The Federal Supreme Court endeavours to publish its decisions – which are in Arabic.
