Source: Emarat Al Youm
The Federal Supreme Court rejected a lawsuit filed by a woman seeking to establish the paternity of a child she had given birth to, against a man whom she claimed she had been involved with in an undisclosed relationship. The court upheld the man’s appeal against an earlier ruling issued by the Court of Appeal, which had previously attributed the child’s paternity to him.
The woman had filed a lawsuit against the man, requesting that the child’s paternity be established as his and that he be obligated to bear all legal and Sharia-related consequences arising from the establishment of paternity, including maintenance, care, and official registration, in addition to court fees, expenses, and attorney’s fees.
The claimant stated that she had been involved with the defendant in an undisclosed relationship, during which he had sexual relations with her as a husband would with his wife. She claimed that the relationship resulted in her pregnancy and the birth of the child, who was registered under the mother’s name only due to the defendant’s refusal to acknowledge his paternity.
The defendant’s legal counsel argued that “the results of the DNA test do not, by themselves, constitute sufficient evidence or an independent Sharia-compliant proof of the existence of a marital relationship for the purpose of establishing paternity. Rather, they are merely a technical indication of genetic origin and are insufficient on their own to establish lineage unless supported by Sharia evidence of marriage and valid supporting circumstances.”
The defense added that “the lawsuit lacked any Sharia evidence, witness testimony, or official or customary documents proving the existence of a marriage relationship or even a suspected marriage, even if invalid.”
After the Court of Appeal upheld the first-instance ruling establishing the child’s paternity to the defendant, the Federal Supreme Court overturned the judgment and ruled to dismiss the lawsuit.
In its reasoning, the Federal Supreme Court stated that the appellate judgment, which upheld the first-instance decision, had established the child’s paternity based solely on the findings of a forensic laboratory report issued by the DNA unit in the criminal case, which concluded that the possibility that the defendant and the claimant were the child’s biological parents could not be excluded.
However, the court noted that the facts—as presented by the claimant herself in her statement of claim—were based on an alleged undisclosed relationship and cohabitation that resulted in the birth of the child. This relationship was considered a criminal offense, and both parties had been convicted under the same criminal judgment on charges related to facilitating immorality and unlawful sexual intercourse.
The court held that the case file contained no proof of a valid marriage contract or an acceptable suspicion of marriage between the parties, which meant that the legally and religiously recognized marital bed (firaash) required for establishing lineage did not exist.
The court further explained that reliance on DNA testing does not change this conclusion, as genetic testing cannot independently establish paternity when the relationship lacks the legal and Sharia foundation of marriage or a recognized marital bond. It also noted that the case documents included official records conclusively proving that the claimant was married to another person.
The court emphasized that the child’s lineage cannot be established solely based on a genetic fact resulting from an unlawful relationship outside the legal framework governing personal status matters.
The court also rejected the claimant’s reliance on a document allegedly issued by a law office and containing signatures dated after the events in question, which indicated that she had been divorced. The court stated that it is a settled principle of evidence law that a person cannot create evidence for themselves and use it against others, and that divorce must be officially documented.
The Federal Supreme Court concluded that the challenged judgment had failed to apply these mandatory legal principles and had given DNA evidence absolute authority beyond the specific circumstances permitted under Article (90) of Federal Decree-Law No. (41) of 2024 regarding the issuance of the Personal Status Law.
Accordingly, the court found that the judgment was flawed due to misapplication of the law, defective reasoning, and insufficient justification, and therefore ordered its annulment, overturned the appealed judgment, and issued a new ruling dismissing the lawsuit.