Dubai Court of Cassation (General Assembly), Appeal No. 7 of 2023, judgment of 31 January 2024
Under Article 176 of the Civil Procedure Code, the Attorney General may challenge in cassation, within one year of its issue, a final judgment that breaches the law where the parties could not challenge it, missed the deadline, waived the challenge, or had their challenge declared inadmissible. The year runs from the judgment's date but is suspended from the filing of a party's appeal or cassation appeal until that appeal is decided, and then resumes, because the appeal court may itself correct the error. The judgment also held that, under the former Article 162, grounds stated in general terms in the appeal statement sufficed if they did not cast doubt on the appeal's seriousness.
A food trading company sued a trading company and its manager over fifteen cheques of AED 100,000 each. The court of first instance ordered the defendants to pay AED 730,057.10 with 5 per cent interest. On 17 November 2021 the Court of Appeal dismissed the claimant's appeal and declared the defendants' appeal inadmissible for lack of grounds. The defendants' own cassation appeal was declared inadmissible in September 2022 because the fee was paid late. On 7 February 2023 the Attorney General appealed in cassation against the appeal judgment. The chamber referred the appeal to the General Assembly because of conflicting judgments on whether the Attorney General's one-year period runs from the judgment under attack even when the parties' own appeals were pending.
The Assembly held that Article 176 of the Civil Procedure Code allows the Attorney General, of his own motion or at the request of the Minister of Justice or the head of the local judicial authority, to challenge final judgments that breach the law, including those where the parties' challenge was declared inadmissible, within one year of the judgment, the challenge benefiting the parties. Because a party's appeal may lead the appeal court itself to correct the error, the Attorney General must await its outcome; the year is suspended from the filing of the parties' appeal until it is decided and then resumes, and, under Article 104, if the Attorney General files first his challenge is stayed. It adopted that principle by the required majority. Here the period ran from November 2021, was suspended from 29 December 2021 to 26 September 2022 and then resumed, so the challenge was in time.
On the merits, the former Article 162 (now Article 164) required grounds in the appeal statement but allowed them to be filed up to the first hearing; a statement that the judgment was unfair, breached the right of defence, contradicted the facts and misapplied the law was sufficient, since the Court of Appeal reviews the whole dispute. The Assembly quashed the judgment on that appeal and remitted it.
Parties who lose their own right of appeal through procedural mistakes, such as late fees, may still see a legally flawed judgment reviewed if the Attorney General intervenes, and the time taken by their failed appeal does not count against the Attorney General's one-year limit. The holding on general grounds of appeal was given under the former Article 162, which allowed grounds to be supplied up to the first hearing.
| Articles 104, 164 and 176 of Federal Decree-Law No. 42 of 2022 (Civil Procedure Code) — text of articles 104, 164, 176 |
| Article 162 of Federal Law No. 11 of 1992 (former Civil Procedure Law), as amended by Federal Decree-Law No. 18 of 2018 Decided under this law; it has been replaced by Civil Procedure Code. |
| Article 20 of Dubai Law No. 13 of 2016 on the Judicial Authority in the Emirate of Dubai (referral to and majority of the General Assembly) |
“إذا قدم طعن من الخصوم أن يوقف ميعاد طعن النائب العام وذلك من تاريخ تقديم الطعن بالاستئناف أو بالتمييز لحين صدور حكم محكمة الاستئناف أو التمييز”Short quotation from the judgment as published by the court. The full judgment is on the court’s official service.
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