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Okay. So that the course clarified the child in the UAE does not have a right of choice with regard to the parent he or she wants to live with.

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It is only upon the competent court to decide what is in the best interest of the child.

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Judgements regarding the extension of female custodianship indicate that courts are indeed willing to extend

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the statutory the female custody beyond the statutory age limits whenever the mother is the custodian.

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It is also noteworthy that when the mother is the custodian and the custody is extended, it is usually up to the very limits of the law.

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Puberty and marriage.

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I did not come across a single judgement that ordered an extension of female custody at a different age in between the two options.

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The 2005 Court of Personal Status also determines the exact order of custody, as mentioned before in Article 146.

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However, courts in the UAE did not always adhere to that order.

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In 2006, just one year after the new code entered into force, the Dubai Court of Cassation pointed out that the courts do,

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in fact have the right to allocate custody, assign custody according to the classical Maliki rules.

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That is, with the maternal grandmother and not the father following the mother immediately in vain.

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This judgement serves as an example of how legal reform initiated by the legislator does not always resonate with the judiciary immediately.

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Thus far, there have been no cases recorded in which the courts had to decide upon the custody of a non-Muslim mother for her Muslim child.

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Research in this area of the law has to wait for the first cases to be tried, according to Article 145 of the new code.

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These judgements will throw valuable light on the significance that is placed

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upon religious affiliation when courts determine the welfare of the child.

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And one of the recent Kurdish occasions in the Arab Gulf, the Carter Family Code of 2006,

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stands out in defining in what exactly constitutes the welfare of the child.

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According to the Qatari code, judges are to consider the custodian's affection for the child and his ability or her ability to raise the child,

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as well as provide a sound environment, education and medical care.

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The Emirati legislator did not include such stipulations in the new codification, and thus it is upon the courts to define the welfare of the child.

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When analysing judgements from the past seven years since the qualification in the UAE,

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it becomes clear that the Emirati court's definition of what constitutes the welfare of the child is similar to the statutory provisions in Qatar.

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Two reoccurring themes are the quest one the question of what is harmful to the child, and second, the affection of the custodian.

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At the same time,

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the courts in the UAE have thus far refrained from defining in clear terms the welfare of the child in a way that the Qatari legislator did.

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I know selected two cases to illustrate how high courts use their discretion in deciding the

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best interests of the child without actually defining what constitutes the child's welfare.

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According to Article 144, as mentioned earlier,

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a woman with a woman will lose custody if she remarries two men who is not prohibited from marrying the child under custody.

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However, the Dubai excuse me, the Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation decided to the contrary,

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according to a judgement from 2011, a mother between custody of her son.

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As the Court established that the existing marriage to the non-related men did not cause any harm to the boy.

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The ruling maintained that a continuation of the mother's custody was more beneficial to the child than a transfer into his father's custody.

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Thus, in the interest of the child, the court actually ruled against the statutory provisions of the code as it established the mother's

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strong affection for her child and her continued ability to raise him despite of the new marriage.

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The second judgement further illustrates the Court's use of judicial discretion.

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In 2006, the UAE High Court granted a woman custody of her five minor children, all boys aged 5 to 14,

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even though she had previously convicted of a so-called crime against honour, which includes adultery.

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Her husband divorced in 2004 after he caught her in private with an unrelated man in their house.

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And after the divorce, the father initially claimed custody for his five children,

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some of whom had mental and physical disabilities, in order to care for the children, probably properly.

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His mother, the children's paternal grandmother, lived with them.

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So all the conditions that are required to be fulfilled by the father were indeed fulfilled.

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The mother now filed a lawsuit against her former husband to have her five minor children handed over into her custody.

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And in order to establish the mother's ability to take care to care for the children.

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The court of first instance had already interviewed a facility for children with special needs that worked with the family.

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The facility's staff testified to the mother's strong affection for the children and her ability to raise her.

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And the UAE high court confirmed the verdict. The court maintained that it was within the court of first instance competence

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to establish the welfare of the child and that the reasoning was flawless.

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A strong bond between the mother and the children was of utmost importance for their welfare,

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since the mother further had the ability to care for the children and raise them.

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As testified by that facility. The Court did not see any reason to transfer the children back into their father's custody.

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The mother's custodianship was thus controlled despite of her previous convictions.

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The court argued that the welfare of the child outweighed the father's eligible claim to custody for his children.

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Okay, so to conclude, let me say that judgements of high courts in the UAE has in fact closed some of the gaps which the new code contain.

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Examples are the age at which puberty is to be assumed,

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and the question of custody within an existing marriage have both been clarified by the courts,

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where the code reflects the division of parenting functions along gender lines and a curtailment

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of rights that classical Islamic law granted mothers in the pre-qualification period.

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The courts have, at the same time shown considerable flexibility in applying the law.

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Judges do make use of their large discretion when assigning custody, such as the different age limits for female custodianship,

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and they sometimes even go beyond the statutory provisions, for example, when granting a remarried mother custody of her child.

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However, the court's definition of the welfare of the child mostly remains that courts frequently named the affection for the child as well.

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The ability to raise him or her as indicators to when to as indicators for the child's welfare.

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These factors are, however, difficult to measure.

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High courts in the UAE have thus far refrained from defining a clear frame of reference for establishing the welfare of the child.

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It is also rather difficult to find an answer to the question if the codification of

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Muslim personal status law in the UAE succeeded in bringing about legal certainty

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through an analysis of custody judgements as such just undertaken because a

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review in this of verdicts in this area proves that even after the codification,

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the large judicial discretion prevails. So judgements from the pre and the post codification period do not differ significantly why

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the court did establish fixed age limits and conditions to be fulfilled by the custodian.

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The code still grants the judiciary large discretionary powers to decide to the contrary,

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mostly whenever such a deviating judgement is in the best interests of the child.

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And courts do make use of this discretion. Therefore, legal certainty can only be guaranteed in so far as it concerns the absolute necessity

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for the courts to always consider the welfare of the child when allocating custody.

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Thank you very much.