The Dubai Courts Department (DCD) has launched a voluntary initiative to promote legal experts’ participation in charitable and humanitarian movement in the UAE as part of 2017 being the ‘Year of Giving’.

DCD launched the third phase of ‘Aoun’ [aid], a leading initiative designed to provide financially challenged litigants with assistance under the supervision of a group of volunteer legal experts, according to Taresh Eid Al Mansouri, the department’s director general

“This move complements the DCD’s efforts to support the national movement towards establishing the concept of giving as an inherent value within society in response to the declaration of 2017 as the ‘Year of Giving’ by President His Highness Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan,” said Al Mansouri.

The latest stage builds on the success of the previous phases of this quality initiative in providing free support services to financially constrained litigants in personal status cases, and labour, civil and real estate suits, Al Mansouri was quoted as saying in a statement

“It forms part of the efforts to integrate the activities of DCD and legal offices to help boost confidence in the judicial system and highlight the role of the Department in providing community services. Whereas the first and second phases were limited to the Center of Amicable Settlements of Disputes Department, the third phase will cover the First Instance Courts and Courts of Appeal. The current phase opens broad prospects for activating partnerships between the DCD and legal offices to facilitate the litigation procedures of financially challenged litigants and promote the spirit of volunteerism within the judicial and legal system per the wise policy of the government to ensure the good of all and uphold giving as an important value characterising all Emiratis,” according to the director general.

He said expanding the ‘Aoun’ initiative to include the First Instance Courts, Courts of Appeal, Labor Courts and the Center of Amicable Settlements of Disputes in the third stage is in line with the DCD’s commitment to become a permanent fixture within the UAE’s charitable and humanitarian movement.

The initiative aligns with the three main themes of ‘2017. Year of Giving,’ especially in terms of consolidating social responsibility among government and private sector organisations to enable them play major roles in national development, said Al Mansouri

source : gulfnews