Hindi has been included as the third official language, besides Arabic and English, on all interactive forms filed before Abu Dhabi courts in labour cases, Khaleej Times reported. The Abu Dhabi Judicial Department on Saturday said the move was aimed at providing foreigners better access to justice, without a language barrier.

“The adoption of multilingual interactive forms for claim sheets, grievances and requests, aims to promote judicial services in line with the plan ‘Tomorrow 2021’, and increase the transparency of litigation procedures,” said Yousef Saeed Al Abri, undersecretary of the judicial department.

Immigrants make up at least two-thirds of the five-million population of the United Arab Emirates. The Indian community in the UAE constitutes 30% of the total population, PTI reported.

Al Abri said the move comes under the directive of Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who is the deputy prime minister of Abu Dhabi and the minister of presidential affairs. He is also the chairman of the Abu Dhabi Judicial Department.

“This is in addition to facilitating registration procedures to the public through simplified and easy forms and raising litigants’ legal awareness via interactive forms of the statements of claims to ensure access to the legal materials related to the subject of the dispute,” Al Abri added.