A new Official Legislation Portal (the Portal) has gone live in the UAE, publishing in both Arabic and English all federal legislation, bylaws, decrees, decisions and executive regulations which have been issued in the UAE since its foundation in 1971 (UAE Laws). The Portal for the first time provides a single official source to access UAE Laws in both Arabic and English. It allows users to search by legislation name, number and keywords. Its contents have additionally been categorised into sectors which can be further filtered by law type and year of issuance to aid functionality. The Portal can be found at the following link. Whilst only federal level UAE Laws have been included in the Portal for the time being, there is an expectation that Emirate-level legislation may be added in the future.

As part of his announcement on X following the cabinet meeting held on 5 February 2024, HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, said of the Portal: "Our aim is to promote government transparency, enhance participation and engagement of various segments of society, and maintain the status of our legislative environment among the best globally."

It is long established that, in the event of a conflict between the Arabic version of a law or contract and an English translation, the Arabic version will typically take precedence in the UAE courts. Notwithstanding that, given the prevalence of the English language in international commercial dealings and amongst legal practitioners both in the UAE and beyond, in the same vein as Abu Dhabi's recent overhaul of its longstanding position of only providing notarisation services in Arabic by paving the way for an exclusively English, online notarisation service (see our earlier article "Notarisation in the UAE – Abu Dhabi notarisation revolutionised" for further details), by providing easy access to both an official Arabic and English translation of all UAE Laws, the Portal marks a further significant positive development in the legal landscape of the UAE by giving those without Arabic language capability easy access to UAE Laws too. This will no doubt help to support the UAE's standing as a leading location from which to easily do business in the Middle East, including for those individuals with only English language skills.