Tim Elliot: Welcome to another edition of Lawgical, the U.A.E.’s first legal podcast. Now Lawgical comes to you from the Dubai-based legal firm, HPL Yamalova & Plewka in JLT, Jumeirah Lakes Towers. My name’s Tim Elliot. As ever, very pleased to welcome the Managing Partner of the firm, Ludmila Yamalova. Great to see you again.
Ludmila Yamalova: Lovely to be here with you, Tim, as always.
Tim Elliot: In this edition of Lawgical, we’re going to be talking, hopefully in a condensed, brief fashion to keep it simple, about getting married in the United Arab Emirates if you are not a Muslim. Now, Ludmila, the U.A.E., it would be fair to say, is a pretty diverse and multicultural place. I think we’re all happy with that statement. The national religion is, of course, Islam. But if you’re not a Muslim, there is nothing to stop you from marrying here in the U.A.E., is there?
Ludmila Yamalova: Indeed. Non-Muslim expats can get married in the U.A.E. Many of them do get married every year. There are a number of options that are available to them, but I will tell you what is not available to them is an option that is available and that is actually required and a mandate for Muslim couples, and that is marriage by a court by a judge. Non-Muslim expats cannot get married in the court here. That service is only available to the Muslim couples.
Which means, apart from getting married in court, what are the other options? In fact, within the U.A.E. there are two options. (1) One is to get married through a religious marriage, a marriage that is not just recognized in this country, but has a legal framework that allows them to officiate marriages, and (2), more importantly, to issue attested marriage certificates which are registered and recognized by the local authorities. Now that happens or that is available for many different couples with different religions. For example, there are a number of churches, the various houses of worship, depending on the religion, you have churches, you have temples, and now, you even have a synagogue, so all the couples that belong to a different religious faith, they can get married in one of those venues or their marriage is officiated by one of the religious figures from those venues. For example, for Christians, there are a number of priests around the U.A.E. who have actually been given the authority by the U.A.E. government to not only officiate marriages, but also to issue marriage certificates which are recognized by the U.A.E. government.
Similarly, for example, if you are a Hindi or an Indian nationality and you are Hindi, so you could get married in your own temple, but it is not just any temple. There are certain figures, certain representatives of these various religious faiths that have the authority from the government to officiate marriages and to issue marriage certificates. Most recently, the synagogue, in fact, now there is the U.A.E.’s first synagogue, and they also have the authority to officiate marriages and to also issue marriage certificates. The key here is that this marriage certificate ultimately then has to be attested by the local authorities, and to do that, there is a different process that exists. One of the steps is once the priest or the rabbi, or whoever else, would officiate the marriage and attach his signature to the marriage certificate, then they need to take this marriage certificate and have it attested by the Ministry of Justice in the U.A.E. The Ministry of Justice has these different houses of worship registered, so whenever they get a marriage certificate from one of these entities, they already know that particular person has the authority to officiate a marriage. Then the Ministry of Justice will add its own stamp and then after that you can take it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and at that point you have a marriage certificate that is properly legalized and attested and official, not only in this country, but outside. That is one way of registering the marriage.
It is interesting because ultimately, in this case, the marriage starts out, at least administered by a religious person or representative, but at the end it is religious/civil marriage because it has all the different official government authorities that sign off on it. Even though it was officiated by a priest, it is ultimately, with all the stamps from the various U.A.E. government authorities, outside of the U.A.E. it will be recognized as a legitimate and properly registered marriage. That is one option.
The other option is to certain nationalities and certain governments of certain nationalities also offer the service of marrying their citizens in their country’s consulates or embassies in the U.A.E. Not all countries are for that. For example, the Romanian government does, so if one of the parties in a couple is Romanian, then they can go to the Romanian government and the Romanian government will then officiate the marriage and issue a marriage certificate, and obviously, because there is a government stamp there to begin with, it is easier to then later legalize it or attest it with the other U.A.E. government authorities. The Philippine government as well offers that service and a few other nationalities, I think, Kyrgyz and some of the central Asian governments, as well offer that service to their citizens, but it is not available to all. For example, the U.S. Embassy does not offer that. I don’t think the Canadian Embassy offers it either. Those are the two options for non-Muslim expats to get married to get married within the borders of the U.A.E., if you will. But to do that, again, there are requirements where at least one of them has to be a U.A.E. resident. That is a requirement.
Then, the other option for them is to actually get married outside of the U.A.E. in whatever country it may be, and then have that marriage certificate attested for the purposes of the U.A.E. and then once they have that marriage certificate attested and legalized, it acts the same way as if the marriage were to take place or registered within the U.A.E.
Tim Elliot: That’s an interesting point actually. If you do decide to get married outside of the U.A.E., at home, wherever home might be, that is fine. You can have documents attested, recognized, that allows you to ease the process of obtaining a residence visa, an Emirate’s ID, etc. If you live in the U.A.E. but you want to get married in an exotic location, on the beach in the Seychelles, or whatever, that is fine as well, as long as the bureaucracy is met in the proper fashion. But I think it’s really important to point out or reiterate – we’ve talked about this a number of times, and I don’t want to be negative towards the institution of marriage, but we all get carried away with our one person, and it doesn’t always work in the right way – the laws of the country where the marriage certificate was registered will apply in the case of a divorce, I think, in most instances. I think it is worth reminding, reiterating, that point.
Ludmila Yamalova: Indeed. This is in accordance with a recently amended law in the U.A.E., the Personal Status Law in particular, the one that applies to place of divorces for non-Muslim expats. Actually, it is not just non-Muslim expats, it is non nationals or expats. This particular personal status law applies to expats in the event of divorce, and as per this law, the couple has the choice of the application of the law to their divorce of where their marriage was registered. This is a new law. Previously, there were some other variations, and the default was that it would be the Sharia law that would apply to divorce. But now it is the law of the country where the marriage took place, which is very important, particularly in cases of so many expats living in the U.A.E. because there are so many wonderful places and destinations that are so close by to the U.A.E. that a lot of couples choose to get married not just inside of the U.A.E. and not in their home countries, but rather, in some other interesting and exotic location that is close to the U.A.E., such as you said, Seychelles. For example, Sri Lanka is another popular destination. What is important to highlight here is that in the event that couple then gets divorced in the U.A.E., the U.A.E. will look at the laws of the country where the marriage took place, i.e., in this case it would be Seychelles or Sri Lanka. That is important to highlight because in many of these cases the couples that get married have no relationship to Sri Lanka or Seychelles, for example, so they may have very different expectations in terms of what laws would apply in the event they decide to go their separate ways. But the law now makes it very clear that it is the law of the country ultimately where your marriage certificate was registered, so it’s important to highlight for all of those who choose to get married, they should consider their options carefully.
Tim Elliot: It’s a point that you really have to make, isn’t it? Because if you want the picture postcard wedding, and there’s nothing wrong with that, if you want that as part of your life experience, if you like, you’ve got to read the fine print because down the road, you never know.
Ludmila Yamalova: Indeed, and that is a good reminder and a timely one in particular because of the recent amendments in the law.
Tim Elliot: That’s another episode of Lawgical, this time getting married if you’re not a Muslim in the United Arab Emirates, how to do it, and what to expect. As always, our legal expert here on Lawgical, was Ludmila Yamalova, the Managing Partner at Yamalova & Plewka, here in JLT. Ludmila, thank you again for your time and your legal expertise.
Ludmila Yamalova: Thank you, Tim. As always, it was a pleasure chatting with you.
Tim Elliot: To have a legal question answered in a future Lawgical episode, or if you’d like a consultation with a qualified U.A.E. experienced legal professional, you can find us on social media very easily. We’ve also got now an easy-to-search library of hundreds of podcasts that are free to download or listen to. They cover all manner of legal issues here in the U.A.E. as well. If you prefer, you can always just head to our website, LYLawyers.com, and click on Contact.
