Criminal Law is applied when a person commits a crime such as theft, forgery, murder, rape or any other kind of act that is considered a ‘crime’ as per the UAE penal code under Federal Decree Law No. 31 of 2021 on the Issuance of the Criminal Procedure Law. When a person is charged with a crime, they are arrested by the police and tried before the Criminal courts.
Civil Law, on the other hand, mostly refers to disputes between parties and is applied when a dispute is filed by one person against another person and/or entity. A variety of matters will have a civil cause of action, such as property disputes, commercial disputes, disputes for sale and purchase, rental matters, action in tort etc.
Both the criminal and the civil courts are different, and the judges of the said courts are also assigned with varied and distinctive powers. For example, a criminal court judge can sentence the offender with a jail term while the civil court judge can, in cases of non-payment of dues, order the judgment debtor to make the payments due to the judgment creditor and, if such orders are not followed, the court can impose seizure of assets and warrant for arrest as well. The orders passed by the judges are issued as per the prescribed laws.
Occasionally, an ongoing criminal case may give rise to an offshoot civil case. In such cases, it is important to understand that both Civil and Criminal proceedings can often run parallel to each other, and in some instances, the civil proceedings can be temporarily withheld if there exists a criminal case pending before the court in connection with the civil case. Article 23 of the Federal Decree Law No. 38 of 2022 on the Issuance of the Criminal Procedure Law (“Law”) states that a person may bring forward claims of a civil nature before the Criminal Court if he has sustained personal harm due to a crime that is tried in the Criminal court. Article 27 of the Law further adds that the Criminal Court may refer the civil case to the competent Civil Court if it deems that the civil claim requires conducting a special investigation that will result in postponing the decision on the criminal lawsuit.
Article 29 of the Law states that when a civil case is filed in a civil court, the final judgement in the civil case will be suspended until after the issuance of the judgement in the criminal lawsuit, provided that if the criminal case is suspended due to insanity of the defendant, the civil case will continue. Furthermore, the suspension of the civil law suit will be terminated from the date of the expiry of the deadline of appealing the judgement by the Public Prosecution, or from the day of the decision of the appeal court, in case an appeal was duly filed. The suspension of the civil case will not prevent someone from taking up urgent precautionary measures. The Article also states that the criminal procedure code is to be followed in civil actions brought before the Criminal court.
In summary, a civil suit can be temporarily withheld until the final judgment is obtained in the criminal case that is filed in the same subject matter. Any person who has been accused of a serious crime such as a ‘felony’ as opposed to a less serious crimes such as a ‘misdemeanor’ should appoint a criminal trial lawyer to defend them before the criminal courts and to prove their innocence. The UAE’s criminal procedure law presumes innocence until proven guilty and does not impose a penalty until the accused is proven guilty as per the Law. An expert criminal trial lawyer is best suited to advise and handle the defense strategy in criminal matters.
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About the Author
Dr. Hassan Elhais publishes analysis of UAE criminal law matters, including criminal investigations, procedural questions and criminal-law disputes. For readers researching a criminal lawyer in Dubai, his writing offers insight into the legal questions surrounding these topics. Explore his published work and practice-area information for further context.
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