Hindi to become official language in Abu Dhabi courts

This move will enable foreign nationals to lodge claims and raise grievances in Hindi, which is widely spoken by many expat workers, especially by those from India and Nepal in the United Arab Emirates in labour cases. Last November, in a first for the region, Abu Dhabi introduced a rule that all documents in civil and commercial cases should be presented to non-Arabic defendants in English.

The Abu Dhabi Justice Department said the change would allow Hindi speakers to learn about litigation procedures and their rights and responsibilities without a language barrier.

This is aimed at helping foreigners 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 Abu Dhabi Justice Department (ADJD) website. Authorities have also created bi-lingual language guides to explain complex legal terms and used info-graphics in an effort to help people understand court processes.

In January this year the Indian mission in the United Arab Emirates announced its decision to hire eight law firms to fight the cases of Indian expatriates in distress. Indian expatriates form the largest expatriate community in the UAE. The close links between Indians and the Emirates spans centuries.

Ginu Zachariah Oommen, a member of the Kerala Public Service Commission and a specialist on South Asian migration and labour in the Gulf says that Indian presence in the Gulf countries, including in the UAE, dates back to antiquity. “In the modern era, the Persian gulf region was administered under the Bombay presidency. Indian traders had a significant presence in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, and Indian merchant guild used to be very influential in the decision making process in these places. In the Gulf countries Hindi used to be the trading language along with Arabic. Moreover during the colonial British had appointed Indians in the key administrative position administrative position and heavily depended on Indians to govern the region,.” Furthermore, Indians continued to be the ‘preferred choice’ after the oil boom and Indian expatriates have made a remarkable contribution in building the modern Gulf. “The unexplainable dependency [of local Gulf residents] on Indian care givers and domestic workers have unknowingly led to the infiltration of Indian languages into the Arab society. Hence it is quite natural that Abu Dhabi has finally decided to include Hindi as one of the languages of litigation,” he further opined.

Last December the UAE and India had inked a landmark currency swap agreement, which meant businesses can now do trade using local currencies of rupee and dirham, instead of dollar.

With nearly $50 billion bilateral trade, the two countries are one of the largest trade partners for each other and have made robust investments bilaterally. The latest development will be a big boost to import and export bilateral trade.

The agreement was inked during the two-day visit by Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj to the UAE when she  co-chaired the 12th session of the UAE-India Joint Commission Meeting with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation held at ministry’s headquarters in Abu Dhabi. Both leaders also agreed to boost cooperation in trade, security and defence. The leaders also decided to strengthen their resolve to combat extremism and terrorism in all its forms, regardless of the perpetrators and their intent.

Sheikh Abdullah had on that occasion again reiterated the strong historical ties that the UAE shared with India, noting that bilateral relations were based on mutual respect, trust and aimed at enhancing mutual benefit of the people.

The current move to include Hindi as a third language for litigation in Abu Dhabi courts is a testament to this.

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