Hindi, Now the Third Official Language of Abu Dhabi

In a historic decision, Abu Dhabi has included the Hindi language as the third official language to be used in its courts, along with Arabic and English, as part of an initiative that is going to improve access to justice in the country.

This Saturday, the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department declared the adoption of the Hindi language in order to improve the interactive forms of statement of claims, which are filed before the courts. Thus the Hindi language alongside Arabic and English in labor cases is going to help many Indians in Abu Dhabi.

The step is aimed at helping the Hindi speaking people in the country to know about the litigation procedures, their rights, and duties without a language barrier, in addition, it will also help in the registration procedures through a unified form, which is available through the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department (ADJD) website.

According to an official record, the population of UAE is around five million and out of which two-thirds are immigrants from foreign countries. In UAE, the Indian community comprises of about 2.6 million, which constitutes 30 percent of the total population of the country.

Undersecretary of the ADJD, Yousef Saeed Al Abri, said the adoption of the multilingual interactive forms for claim sheets, grievances and requests are aimed to promote judicial services in line with the plan Tomorrow 2021, which will increase the transparency of litigation procedures in the country.

He said, “This is in addition to facilitating registration procedures to the public through simplified and easy forms and raising litigant’s legal awareness via interactive forms of the statements of claims, to ensure access to the legal materials related to the subject of the dispute”.

He also added, “The foreign investor receives the case files translated, thus contributing to the provision of a global judicial service that meets the requirements of residents in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi”.

The adoption of new languages in the country comes as part of the bilingual litigation system, the first phase of which was launched in the month November 2018, through the adoption of procedures which requires the plaintiffs to translate the case documents in civil and commercial cases into English, if the defendant is a foreigner. 

The recent changes and adoption of several languages as an interactive form are introduced in the country under the directives of Deputy Prime Minister Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Presidential Affairs and the Chairman of ADJD.