Cases only represent bounced cheques below Dh200,000 each
DUBAI 17 March 2019: Some 87 per cent – by far the largest – cases settled out of court last year by the Dubai Public prosecution dealt with bounced cheques.
The 26,765 cases settled only related to bounced cheques of up to Dh200,000 in value. Higher value cheques as assumed to have gone to court.
Dubai Public Prosecution is allowed to issue a penal order for crimes classified as misdemeanors, without referring it to the courts for trial.
Dubai’s Attorney-General Essam Eisa Al Humaidan said that the Penal Order legislation enabled it to settle 30,618 cases between November 2017 and the end of 2018.
“Bounced cheques [each] of up to Dh200,000 represented the highest percentage of cases settled by the Penal Order with 26,765 cases or 87% of total cases, while refusal of payment cases represented 3% (951) of the cases.
The Penal Order legislation also helped cut the number of complainants by 26% to 61,212 from 83,042 before the implementation of the legislation; while the number of passports confiscated went down by 33% from 20,485 to 13,723. Legal notices went down 42% from 138,256 notices prior to the implementation of the legislation to 79,650 notices after the implementation.
The Penal Order was issued to expedite the determination of criminal actions, reduce the burden on the criminal courts, streamline proceedings and the administration of justice for minor crimes, and reduce the time, effort and expense incurred by the parties involved in criminal prosecutions. Furthermore, the law enables the public prosecutor to settle minor crimes without the need to take precautionary measures such as the confiscation of the accused’s passport for long periods of time during the course of the investigation and court process.