The Provisional Constitution on which the current legal system in the UAE is based provides, inter alia, that Islam is the official religion and that Arabic shall be the official language of the Union. Article 7 the Provisional Constitution provides that the Islamic Shari’ah shall be the main source of legislation within the Federation. The Shari’ah in its broad sense is a body of Islamic religious, ethical and legal rules; but we are primarily concerned with the Shari’ah in its narrow sense, viz. as a body of legal rules. The Shari’ah itself includes different schools of thought on a number of legal issues but is founded on familiar concepts of justice and equity, and the practical result in commercial matters is often, though not always, the same as would be reached under Western jurisprudence.

The laws and statutes of other Arab and Muslim states and principles of English law are also cited by and before the UAE courts. The precise principles applied in reaching a decision in any given case may depend to a considerable extent upon the nationality and legal training of the judge or judges involved. Many judges, at all levels of both the Federal and local court systems, are nationals of other Arabicspeaking countries having well developed legal systems of their own, which have been strongly influenced by either civil law or common law models. Judgments of UAE courts may reflect features of the legal system under which the particular judge has been trained. Some additional uncertainty results from the facts that the UAE courts do not apply the doctrine of stare decisis and each case is expressly decided on its own merits. The lower courts therefore are not bound in law to follow the decisions of the higher courts. The system of reporting cases decided by the higher courts is also not well developed, probably as a consequence of the doctrine