Dubai, February 10: Along with Arabic and English, Abu Dhabi has announced that Hindi will be the third official language used in its courts. In a bid to improve access to justice, the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department (ADJD), in a landmark decision on Saturday said it has extended the adoption of interactive forms of statement of claims filed before courts by including the Hindi alongside two other languages in labour cases. The latest 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. Hindi is 8th Most Searched Language for Learning in the World.
According to a report by PTI, the adoption of new languages comes as part of the bilingual litigation system, the first phase of which was launched in November 2018, through the adoption of procedures requiring the plaintiffs to translate the case documents in civil and commercial lawsuits into English, if the defendant is a foreigner. Hindi Diwas 2018: Countries Other Than India Which Have a Huge Hindi Speaking Population.
The official figures state that the population of UAE is estimated to be around five million of which 2/3rd are immigrants from foreign countries. Out of the total, the Indian community in the UAE, accounts to 2.6 million. Indians constitute 30 per cent of the total population and is the largest expatriate community in the country.
Yousef Saeed Al Abri, the undersecretary of the ADJD, said the adoption of multilingual interactive forms for claim sheets, grievances and requests, aims to promote judicial services in line with the plan Tomorrow 2021, and increase the transparency of litigation procedures.
Al Abri said 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.
According to a report by PTI, Abri indicated that the extension of the adoption of interactive forms in several languages comes under the directives of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Presidential Affairs and ADJD Chairman. "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," he added.
(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Feb 10, 2019 04:36 PM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).