In order to improve access to justice, Abu Dhabi has made Hindi the third official language used in its courts, alongside Arabic and English.
The Abu Dhabi Judicial Department (ADJD) on February 9, 2019, said that it has extended the adoption of interactive forms of statement of claims filed before courts by including the Hindi language alongside Arabic and English in labour cases.
The move came under the directives of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs and ADJD Chairman.
The landmark decision is aimed at helping Hindi speakers to learn about litigation procedures, their rights and duties without a language barrier, in addition to facilitating registration procedures via unified forms available through the ADJD website, the judicial body said.
The Indian community is the largest expatriate community in the UAE, numbering 2.6 million which constitutes 30 % of the total population.
Yousef Saeed Al Abri, undersecretary of the ADJD clarified that the adoption of multilingual interactive forms is aimed to promote judicial services in line with the plan Tomorrow 2021, and increase the transparency of litigation procedures.
“This is in addition to facilitating registration procedures to the public through simplified and easy forms and raising litigants’ legal awareness via interactive forms of the statements of claims, to ensure access to the legal materials related to the subject of the dispute,” Al Abri said.
