Introduction New Personal Status Law in UAE
The New Personal Status Law in the UAE is formally known as Federal Law No. 41/2022 and came into force in February 2023. The New Personal Status Law builds and takes as reference a broad number of pieces of legislation.
It applies to 13 Laws from the Civil and Procedural Codes, the Dowry Law of 1997, the Federal Law of Personal Status of 2005, the Federal Public Health Law of 2020, the Criminal Code and Law of Evidence, the Federal Law regulating the registration of births and deaths among other legislative pieces concerning the Notary Profession, Judiciary Authority and Supreme Court.
The changes are therefore comprehensive and turn upside down the existing system.
To Whom Applies?
Th New Personal Status Law applies to non-Muslim citizens and non-Muslim foreigners – unless the later insist on the application of their law, which as we know in reference to previous publications would be the law of the place of marriage.
Equality between Men and Women
The New Personal Status Law establishes the equality between men and women in the application of the rights and obligations of the new law.
This reaches to the following 4 areas:
- Equality in testimony before the court. The testimony of a woman before the court will be as valid as the testimony of a man before the court.
- Inheritance: equality in the distribution of inheritance.
- Right to seek divorce: husbands or wives will be able to unilaterally seek divorce from the court. It will no longer be necessary to have a reason for divorce. The unilateral wish of either spouse will be sufficient. When seeking the divorce there will be no need to prove any damage.
- Joint Custody of children until they reach 18 years old at which point they will be able to choose.
Civil Marriage
Civil marriages can be concluded before the authentication judge of the competent court. Spouses will be able to agree on the conditions of the contract and respective rights and obligations during the marriage and post-divorce rights (including joint custody).
It is interesting the opportunities offered to non-Muslims that now will be able to also agree on the economic terms of the marriage.
Alimony under the New Personal Status Law
Divorced women will be able to seek alimony from her husband.
In the absence of spouses agreement in this respect, the acceptance of the request and the period for which it will apply will entirely depend on the deciding judge upon evaluation of the number of years of marriage, the wife’s age, the financial status of the spouses (based on expert report prepared by an accounting expert appointed by the Court), the extent of husband’s contribution to the divorce, the financial damage incurred by either spouse as a consequence of the divorce, the mother’s diligence in taking care of the kids.
The New Personal Status Law stresses that the father shall bear the expenses and costs of the mother’s custody of the children for a period of maximum two years.
This new right for wives residing in the UAE brings the New Personal Status Law in line with most civilized jurisdictions that offers compensation to wives to readjust to the new life conditions whereas the UAE before this new legislation considered a reduced period (when compared to other jurisdictions) and focused on the task of the wives as full care takers, which tend to be the main rule. We will see immediately below that this has also changed.
Joint Custody under the New Personal Status Law
The announced joint custody is a big change that addresses fathers fears of a divorce in the UAE where the kids where within the brackets during which they would be given to the mother unless a gross reason existed to challenge the mother’s qualities to look after her kids.
The New Personal Status Law recognizes the right of the parents and of the children to have equal caretakers in order to preserve the psychological health of the kids and minimize the effects.
Under the New Personal Status Law parents will share the responsibility of raising and seeing their children. As per the New Personal Status Law this will be the default rule unless the spouses mutually decide otherwise or one of the spouses renounces to this right or either spouse submits an application for the other spouse to be deprived of this right for a reason acceptable to the court.
Inheritance and Wills
The New Personal Status Law recognizes the full testamentary freedom of testers.
In the absence of a will, these will be the default rules for inheritance distribution:
- Half to Husband or Wife and half divided equally between the children – without distinction between men and women;
- If no kids – inheritance will be for parents alive, equally divided or fully to the one alive. If one of the parents died, its half could go for siblings of the deceased. If no parents, all will go to the siblings of the deceased equally divided without distinction of males and females.
There will be a register prepared for this purpose. Interesting too is that couples will be able to agree on distribution at the time of signing marriage contract.
As legal practitioners we can’t wait to revise the executive regulations and to start seeing the application of the new legislation by courts, not only divorces but also the application of wills respecting the full testamentary freedom. In due course.
We hope this post will help you understand the New Personal Status Law in the UAE and remain available for any questions regarding this post of general application.
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*The information on this page is not intended to be legal advice. This article is intended to provide an initial introduction to the visa amendments in the UAE.