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The process of modernising the Emirates' legal systems which started in the early 1960s essentially involved replacing the traditional system of law and justice (which was effectively governed by the Shari'a), with laws and institutions of Western inspiration. In addition, alongside the traditional Shari'a courts (which applied Shari'a law and were presided over by Shari'a-trained judges), the

The preceding Supreme Court decisions led to the following conclusions: firstly, although the Supreme Court in these decisions repeatedly insists that recourse to Islamic Shari'a is a matter of policy to be left entirely to the federal legislature, the Court repeatedly announced that all federal legislation should be derived from Islamic Shari'a. The Court thus adopted the Islamists position according to which any legislation violating the Shari'a dictates should be considered unconstitutional.66 Secondly, although, as mentioned, there was strong evidence of an apparent conflict between the Constitution and the laws dealt with by the Supreme Court in the aforementioned judgments, the Court was reluctant to declare the laws unconstitutional. This is accounted for by the Court's insistence on creating uniformity among these judgments. Greater conflict occurred between the Constitution and Articles 61 and 62 of Abu Dhabi Law than occurred between the Constitution and the Alcoholic Drinks Laws of Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. The fact that there was seen to be no conflict between the Constitution and Articles 61 and 62 naturally led the Supreme Court (for the purpose of creating uniformity among its judgments) to deny the existence of conflict between the Alcoholic Drinks Laws and the Constitution. Thirdly, the Supreme Court in interpreting and applying Article 7 of the Constitution in the judgments mentioned above, distinguished between civil and criminal matters. In answering the question of the legality of bank interest, the Court considered the application of the Shari'a as a matter of policy to be left to the legislature, and not for the judiciary to decide. Concerning the application of the Shari'a in criminal matters, the Court declared that the lower federal courts should apply the punishments prescribed by the Shari'a in Hudud offences. Indeed, practice in the UAE shows the application of Shari'a in the sphere of criminal matters only; it does not apply to commercial matters, especially in the case of applying interest in commercial law as proven by the Supreme Court in the Junatta Bank case. The roots of such a distinction can be found in the answer to the question, why was the application of Shari'a rules regarding Hudud offences made obligatory by the Supreme Court, while the application of the Shari'a rules affecting bank interest was not? The probable answer is that the Supreme Court has shied away from applying the Shari'a where it would threaten orderly economic development and the modernisation of its institutions.67 The application of Hudud punishments, by comparison, threatens no such disruption.

In 1978 in the UAE the comprehensive process of preparing federal laws got underway following the enactment of Resolution No. 50/1978 of the Council of Ministers. This Resolution established a High Committee entrusted with the task of Islamising UAE legislation. The Resolution states that the High Comrnittee is to ascertain precisely where existing USE legislation comes into conflict with the explicit rules or fiundamental principles of the Shari'a, and to prepare new legislation to eliminate such conflict. However, the actual wording of the Resolution is ambiguous; the methods for preparirlg new legislation, and whether or not such legislation includes codification of the Shari'a, as well as comprehensive federal legislation to replace local laws all these aspects of the Cornmittee's task were unclear. Nonetheless, from the start it was clear to the High Committee's members that to achieve Islamisation of the UAE legal system, extensive draft federal laws covering essential legal areas would need to be prepared. It was also clear that in the preparation of these draft laws, the constitutional provisions and orders, especially those conceming the unification and modemisation of the legal system, would have to be met. The High Cornmittee thus prepared comprehensive draft federal laws covering the most essential legal areas; these draft laws took the form of Westem codes and statutes, mainly derived from the Shari'a jurisprudence or compatible with Shari'a requirements. However, in preparing these draft federal laws, the Committee was seen to be acting beyond its competence and therefore violating Resolution No. 50/1978. The outcome was that the majority of these draft codes and statutes were either considerably modified in the final revision (as was the case with the Draft Penal Code) or not ratified and thus not promulgated by the Government until only

The criminal law of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) derives from two primary sources: Islamic law (Shari'a) and modern criminal law based on the provisions of the Federal Penal Code. This series of articles will examine the relationship between these two sources and the conflicts and problems arising from this relationship. In the UAE as in other Muslim countries, Shan'a was the traditional source of detailed legal rules for over a millennium. The binding authority of Shari'a is not conferred by the state, rather it is rooted in the Muslim belief that Sharifa is divinely ordaimed. The Qur'an (considered by Muslims to be the very word of God Himself), and the Sunnah (which details the Prophet Muhammad's interpretations and applications of the Qur'an), constitute ffie basic sources for Shari'a. From these two sources, Muslim jurists derived the detailed legal rules of Islamic law. According to traditional Shari'a legal theory, the deviation of such legal rules is entrusted solely to the jurists. It follows that the formulation of Shari'a detailed law is neither the prerogative of the Muslim state nor the right of Muslim courts. Islamic legal theory states that the right of law-creation is exclusively possessed by God and is not a prerogative of the state, as modern political and legal theories claim. Man thus has no right to create law; his role is esseniially corimed to formulating and discovering God's law as it is contained within Shari'a textual sources (i.e. the Qur'an and the Sunnah). The Federal Penal Code (1987) of the UAE, however, is the result of federal government legislation and as such is both modem (i.e. non-tradiiional) as well as secular. Most of the Code's provisions either originate from or are influenced by Western criminal laws. The Code's inherent contradictions created problems for the Emirates' legal system. The Penal Code attaches equal significance to de . . . @