Mary Nammour

27 April 2010 - Khaleej Times
 

“Ignorance of law is no defence,” goes an old saying in jurisprudence. The UAE has just made it easier to know.

Expatriates, visitors and nationals will be able to access the laws and legal procedure of the UAE by merely touching their mobile phone screens.

Thanks to the Dubai Public Prosecution’s technical initiative, they have been uploaded on iPhones through the Apple Store and can be downloaded at will.

The initiative was announced in November last year, but it was officially launched on Tuesday by Senior Advocate-General Youssef Hassan Al Mutaweh.

“We ran a few trials and launched the first phase with 11 laws,” he said. “It has been found useful by judicial authorities.”

The laws were downloaded by 10,000 users. “It is an unprecedented initiative meant to uphold the rule of law and spread legal awareness among all categories of society,” Al Mutaweh said.

“It stems from our belief that technology has a major role in developing institutional and judicial excellence,” he added.

According to him, the initiative had evoked widespread interest, with many downloads in the US. The programme can be downloaded in seconds and is easy to browse and search.

Laws currently available include the Penal Law, Federal Criminal Procedure Law, Civil Procedure Law, Law on Fighting Information Technology Crime, Human Trafficking Law and Personal Status Law.

More laws will be available in English and other languages later.

The Information Department is working on the Public Prosecution website accessible on iPhone. “It would also help Chief Prosecutors and prosecutors in keeping track of cases and their developments,” Al Mutaweh said.