New generation of Emiratis to enter courtroom

DUBAI // An all-Emirati class of new prosecution and judicial officials donned caps and gowns yesterday for the largest graduation ceremony in the history of the Dubai Judicial Institute.

A total of 53 judges, public prosecutors and military prosecutors from the Dubai Judicial Institute (DJI) took the oath of service in the presence of Sheikh Hamdan bin Mohammed, Crown Prince of Dubai, and Sheikh Maktoum bin Mohammed, head of the Dubai Judicial Council.

Twelve women were among the graduates yesterday: two judges, seven prosecutors and three military prosecutors.

Dr Jamal al Sumaiti, the DJI director general, said part of the institute's mission was to train Emiratis to hold key positions in the federal judiciary system.

Dr al Sumaiti said the institute's programmes had been created with the intention of providing support for the Government's efforts to improve legal and judicial standards.

He said this would be achieved by the development of training programmes that adopted the best international practices and standards.

Judicial officials trained in this way would be able to conduct local, regional and global research in all areas of law and jurisprudence to achieve that goal, Dr al Sumaiti said.

Essam al Humaidan, the attorney general of Dubai and chairman of the DJI, commended the new graduates on their achievement. Mr al Humaidan said they would be best equipped to cope with what he described as a criminal paradigm shift.

"We have carried out extensive practical and academic preparation to deal with new crimes - such as electronic crimes - and, as a result, we are able to maintain control over the crime rate in Dubai," Mr al Humaidan said.

"As prosecutors we are prepared to handle all kinds of situations, especially now that we have been prepared and trained our new graduates to deal with the shift in the crime paradigm."

The institute, which was inaugurated in 1996, also provides training and consultancy services to public and private sector agencies on all areas of law and jurisprudence.

It has created specialised programmes custom-made for the UAE in line with Government efforts to incorporate a higher degree of efficiency in the judicial process.

The DJI has accommodated its programmes to adapt to the criminal dynamic through more than doubling its number of training offerings from two years ago. Almost 1,200 prospective trainees have enrolled for acceptance this year, compared with the 473 candidates who registered in 2008. "The training that we have introduced for this batch included courses ranging from economics to politics and human sciences," said al Sumaiti said.

"We felt that every judiciary member should be versed in all these subjects to know how to deal with the changing economic and political climate. "Today's graduation ceremony marks another achievement for the institute, complementing our mission to strengthen the quality and quantity of implemented training programmes." The graduates included a professional UAE league footballer player, who asked not to be identified, and a practising Dubai criminal lawyer, Abdel Rahman al Emadi, who was sworn in as a judge. The top two public prosecution graduates in the programme were both women; assistant prosecutors Mitra Ibrahim al Madani and Hamda Mohammed al Ahli.

Both were very proud of their achievement and said they were grateful for the opportunity to prove themselves as women in the judicial field. The seven new female assistant prosecutors will be joining their 10 predecessors who graduated in 2009 as the first female prosecutors in the UAE. "We are very proud of our female graduates and they will be an asset to our team," Mr al Humaidan said.

"Female prosecutors have added a great touch. We now have them investigating family and juvenile crimes, financial and drug-related crimes and harder issues as well."

The ceremony at the World Trade Centre in Dubai was also attended by Dr Hadef al Dhaheri, the UAE Minister of Justice, Dr Ahmed bin Hazim, the director general of Dubai Courts, and the Dubai police chief, Lieutenant General Dahi Khalfan Tamim.

amustafa@thenational.ae