UAE legal Q&As: Father keeps refusing to give my hand in marriage

A frustrated daughter asks if she can go ahead and marry without her father's involvement, while another reader asks about labour cards.

I’m a 30-year-old woman and my father keeps on refusing all the men who come forward asking for my hand in marriage due to problems he and my mother have. Can I seek the court’s help so I can get married without my father being my legal guardian?

In your case, as he is refusing men without any reasonable justification, you can, according to article 34 of the personal status law, go to the family guidance committee in your emirate as the personal status court does not accept any case that has not first gone to this committee. Then, if no amicable solution has been reached with your father, your guardianship will be given to a judge from the court, who will have the responsibility of giving you away for marriage. However, this is only after evidence is provided by you and that evidence was found solid that your father had been refusing that you get married for no valid reason and that some of the men who proposed to you were actually well qualified professionally, socially and financially.

I have been offered a job with a company that is set up to operate from a free zone in Dubai. The company says that its staff in Dubai do not require labour cards due to the type of legal entity that they are. However, I would be working for them in Abu Dhabi. Does the company need to get an Abu Dhabi licence and give me a labour card?

The law states that there is no restriction on a company located in one emirate having functions in a different emirate, even if it does operate from a free zone. You can work for them from a different emirate without needing a labour card, as long as your residency visa is issued under the sponsorship of the company in Dubai.

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