UAE top court rejects paternity claim despite DNA evidence

Abu Dhabi: The UAE’s Federal Supreme Court has rejected a woman’s attempt to establish a man as the father of her child, overturning an appellate ruling that had attributed the child to him after DNA testing indicated that the pair could be the biological parents.

The woman had filed the case seeking formal recognition of the child’s paternity and the legal consequences that would follow, including maintenance, care and official registration.

She told the court that she and the man had been involved in an undisclosed relationship in which they lived as husband and wife, and that she became pregnant and later gave birth. The child was registered only under her name after the man declined to acknowledge paternity, according to the case papers.

The man challenged the claim, arguing that DNA findings could not, by themselves, establish the existence of a marital relationship required for attribution of lineage under the circumstances of the case.

His lawyers argued that the proceedings contained no evidence of a valid marriage, witness testimony or other documentation showing that a marriage, including an irregular or otherwise defective one, had existed between the pair.

A lower court and the Court of Appeal nevertheless ruled that the child should be attributed to the man. He challenged that decision before the Federal Supreme Court, which overturned the ruling and dismissed the woman’s claim.

Court questions reliance on DNA

In its reasoning, the Federal Supreme Court said the appellate judgment had relied essentially on a forensic laboratory report from a related criminal case stating that the man and woman could not be excluded as the child’s biological parents.

But the court said the woman’s own description of the relationship showed that the birth did not arise from a proven marriage.

The judgment also noted that official documents in the case indicated that the woman was married to another man.

The Federal Supreme Court concluded that a genetic connection alone could not, in the particular circumstances before it, provide an independent basis for attributing the child’s lineage when the legal requirements governing paternity had not been satisfied.

Under Article 90 of Federal Decree-Law No. 41 of 2024 on Personal Status, courts may order DNA testing in specified circumstances, including disputes over a child’s lineage, but the law also sets conditions governing when such results can be relied upon. 

The court said the appellate ruling had treated the DNA evidence as having broader force than permitted under those provisions and had failed to apply the governing rules correctly.

It therefore overturned the appealed judgment, set aside the earlier ruling establishing paternity and dismissed the woman’s case.

The Federal Supreme Court is the UAE’s highest federal judicial authority and hears appeals in areas including personal status matters.