Can a Final UAE Court Judgment Be Challenged? A Case Study

Key takeaway

A final UAE court judgment can be challenged, but only on narrow grounds. Even after the Court of Cassation has ruled, a judgment may be annulled where a fundamental defect goes to the integrity of the court, such as an unlawfully composed bench. In this case study, Horizons & Co secured the annulment of a final judgment ordering its client to pay more than AED 130 million on exactly that ground.

How did the dispute reach the Court of Cassation?

The dispute was a construction case that began in 2020, in which our client had been ordered to pay in excess of AED 130 million. Both sides had brought claims. The case ran through first instance as a primary claim and a counterclaim, and the final judgment went against our client. The appeal was dismissed. The cassation was dismissed. The other side then moved to enforce.

Most disputes end there. Once the Court of Cassation has ruled and the appeal routes are exhausted, the judgment is final and the losing party is expected to pay. It was not the end for our client.

Our construction dispute resolution team was engaged after the cassation judgment, which is generally a hard point at which to enter a case. There was no further appeal to file and enforcement was already under way. That left us with few options other than to examine every aspect of the case from beginning to end. That process revealed a legal basis that had not previously been explored, and it fundamentally altered our client’s position.

Can a judge who ruled at first instance sit on the appeal in the UAE?

No. UAE procedural law prohibits a judge who has previously decided a matter from sitting on it again at a higher level. In this case, two of the judges who sat on the appellate judgment had already ruled on the same dispute at first instance. They were being asked to review, on appeal, a decision they had taken part in making.

The reasoning behind the prohibition is simple. An appeal is meant to be a fresh look by different judges, not a second signature from the same hands. A judge cannot properly test their own earlier reasoning, and a litigant is entitled to have the appeal heard by people who have not already settled on a view.

Because the rule protects judicial impartiality, it is treated as a matter of public order under the Civil Procedure Law (Federal Decree-Law No. 42 of 2022). Two things follow from that. The defect is serious enough to render the judgment void, and it can be raised even though no party objected at the time.

Why was this case different?

The two judges had never ruled on the merits of the dispute at the Court of First Instance. Their earlier involvement had been limited to a procedural question, yet the prohibition was still held to apply.

At the initial stage of the proceedings, those judges were members of the panel that ruled that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the dispute because of an arbitration agreement between the parties. This was a procedural ruling that did not address the parties’ substantive rights and obligations, nor did it involve any consideration of the merits of the claims or the evidence.

That jurisdictional decision was appealed, and the Court of Appeal overturned it and remitted the case to the Court of First Instance for determination on the merits before a differently constituted panel. Following the remittal, the new panel heard the case and issued a substantive judgment in favour of our client. When the opposing party appealed that substantive judgment, the appeal was assigned to the same two judges who had participated in the earlier jurisdictional ruling.

This was the legal challenge. In many judicial decisions and legal interpretations, the prohibition is understood to apply where a judge has previously considered and determined the merits of a dispute and then hears the same matter again at a later stage. Here, the two judges had not considered the merits when the dispute first came before them.

Our position was that the prohibition is not confined to situations in which a judge has issued a substantive ruling on the merits. It extends to circumstances where a judge has participated judicially in the same dispute in a manner that affects the guarantees of impartiality and independence that the law seeks to preserve when a case moves from one judicial level to another.

The Court accepted that argument and annulled the judgment, notwithstanding that the two judges had only considered the merits of the dispute once, when sitting in the Court of Appeal.

How did Horizons & Co challenge the cassation judgment?

We filed a request to reconsider the Court of Cassation judgment based on the composition of the bench. Earlier in the process we had already secured a temporary stay of enforcement of the judgment running against our client, which held the position while the challenge was heard.

The Court accepted the application, annulled the previous judgment and referred the appeals to a differently constituted panel for a fresh hearing. With the original judgment set aside, there was no longer an enforceable decision against our client, and the dispute will now return to the Court for a full rehearing on its merits.

When can a final UAE court judgment be challenged?

A final UAE court judgment can be challenged where a fundamental defect sits behind it, particularly one that touches the integrity of the court itself. Finality in the UAE courts is strong but not absolute. In limited cases a party can reopen a final judgment in the UAE even after cassation, and enforcement is not always the end of the road.

Fraud, forgery and withheld documents are the better-known grounds. Challenges based on the composition of the bench receive far less attention, despite their potential significance. This case broadens that ground further. The judges concerned had not previously ruled on the merits, only on a jurisdictional point, yet the Court held that their later involvement still breached the impartiality rule. That makes it a notable precedent for how far the disqualification principle now reaches.

The second lesson is practical. A judgment is not only a result. It is also a record of how that result was reached, including who sat on it and at which stage. By the time we took the file, the merits had been argued three times. What had not been examined closely was the procedural history of the panel. That was the gap.

If a matter has gone against you and enforcement is approaching, a second legal opinion from lawyers who did not run the case the first time is worth seeking. Have the file reviewed for how the judgment was produced, not only whether the reasoning was sound. The point that reopens a case is often not the one that was argued hardest.

Horizons & Co acts for clients across the UAE in construction dispute resolution, arbitration, and judgment enforcement and asset recovery. If a final judgment has gone against you, our Dispute Resolution team can review the file.

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