[Music] good morning I'm Ahmed Elnaggar and this is Monday legal and as you know uh we agreed with Clotilde Iaia to be our special guest who appears at least one once a month to speak to us about important legal topics thank you very much for coming again thank you so much ahed for having me today and in the past few week past few months um how was your summer Amed ah was fantastic my summer was really good great I spent so much quality time with my family mom and dad and my son my daughter no it was great I'm happy to be back happy to continue the the the episodes and we always uh would like to speak about important legal topic especially with the family law and that's why we have the expert with us thank you I'm so happy to be here today because actually we're going to speak about your country Egypt uh so your president president Abdul fat alissi so hopefully I pronounced that correctly good on May 20 of 2024 um issued uh the Unified insurance law number 155 of 2024 um now this is a general insurance law that introduced different uh type of uh amendments to uh Egyptian insurance law of course we don't have the time or the interest in this in this specific circumstances to review the all law which is quite extensive uh but there was one part of the law that caught my attention and actually thank you because you flagged that to uh which is something peculiar that we've not seen before and in in any other countries as far as I'm aware and is the obligation for uh is introducing the obligation for um people that intends to intend to get married in Egypt to enter or uh or to apply for an insurance coverage uh that would cover some expenses that are connected with uh possible or potential divorce the law provides for some minimum fee payment which I think from my understanding is Affordable by majority probably of Egyptians that would be in age of getting married married uh because sorry the the Egyptian pound sorry it's about 50 pound 50 Egyption pounds uh at the time of the marriage contract fee and then there is another small fee to be paid in case of divorce which is 25 uh Egyptian pounds uh so what is that in Us doll um50 is a little more than $1 okay so yeah as a contribution I think it's a nominal contribution that however I find it quite unique I haven't seen any insurance policy against divorce uh before I don't know maybe celebrities in in Hollywood would have something like that I haven't seen it also maybe I was thinking that perhaps maybe some some life insurance might be able to cover divorce as like an unexpected event that can affect your financial condition I'm not sure if you can really there are if there are honestly other countries where you can Ure against divorce because at the end of the day divorce is something that you choose and so how is the how is there really insurance companies going to foresee or or to avoid the thing that has been done on purpose for instance by by insured to claim the insured amount for I I guess right that's that's that's quite a good risk that you're talking about that the insurance regulator have to come up with some uh internal regulations to make sure that really it is a genuine case is not just a fabricated one and I don't know maybe the the contribution to the insurance will Define what is the amount that will be paid in the end I just find it very significant that maybe steered by the amount of cases where the women are left out after a divorce with not uh enough financial support so they they came up with such policy to um to maybe help and make it obligation for the husband to contribute to this perhaps the government would this money will be able to create a fund maybe it's a government fund that will be funded with this sort of so they call it insurance but perhaps more like a tax yeah so that U fixed tax that that is going to go to to or towards uh potentially funding an eventual divorce so the the pecularity of the law is that of course in Egypt for the for the for the woman to claim the premium um from the insurance ins sorry to claim yes the insured amount from the insurance uh she would have to be the divorce must be um uh must have been uh irrevocable and so I was reading a little bit about it because of course it is a bit different from what we're used to in in the UAE and uh so the divorce will have to be um so you have to help me with this concept so I understand that the divorce woman will have to be to have been divorced by her husband at least three times yeah or they would have to have divorced at divorce three times to be considered an irrevocable divorce like a final final one yes a final one and so I was wondering I was researching how that happens in practice and my understanding is that every time the husband divorces the woman then there has to be at least one menstrual cycle before he can divorce the woman another time or yes I mean the three months is the three Cycles basically are the period where the woman is not able to marry again so or to get into another marriage after the divorce and during this cycle uh this three Cycles are the couple has the right or the husband who made the divorce has the right to revoke it to revoke it yes and it can revoke it up until the very last up until the very last day of the third cycle all right but if it is if if he let say he has divorced the the husband has divorced the wife twice yeah then if then he changes his mind and recall the wife then they would have to enter into a new marriage contract actually every time the three the three Cycles lapse without a revoking of the divorce there must be a new contract there must be a new contract for every time however after the third divorce yes and the lapse of the three Cycles yes the divorce considered final and there is no way for this couple to be reunited again unless the woman g into a new marriage and got a newer divorce another man actual marriage not a fake one yes actual marriage and the divorce and the laps of also the three Cycles then they might be reunited again but that's I guess a very rare cases that have you ever heard of somebody going through all of this and then returning together it's it's it's funny we've seen a lot of movies about this especially comedy movies about this uh uh it must be a little bit funny that somebody would go through all this Spain and then going back together it it was portrayed many times that this is a procedure that the the couple who are like very energetic and very irrational who go into the three divorces and then afterwards they really want to come back together and for this they get into alal there someone who will create this occasion for them to be able to remarry again and of course all the comedian I guess scenario I'm trying to understand where all the drama in relationship in the Mediterranean area of our of you know of the world I think it's the seab breeze of the mediterrania that creates this kind of drama but it's fun at some point I thought it was really funny because the difference for instance and how like but this is just to just to have a little bit of anecdotal example um how uh Anglo Saxon perceive uh relationship and pursuing somebody and how that works with in in the at least in the Mediterranean when I speak about Mediterraneans because I'm from apulia which is on the union sea but the Greeks have very similar yeah kind of type of um uh courtship um code because of course it's not a written code right but you know that the woman has to be you know the first five six time somebody asks you out the answer is going to be no yes and they will never call you and they will never tell you that they like you so there are like Unwritten rules that you know that would apply right but it this reminds me a little bit of uh this I mean it's I I think sometimes what we have then codified know in the law is also because of it's important to address the uses and Customs on certain specific uh AB uh way of reasoning or things happening right divorce in general I think it's a very sensitive topic and a very sensitive Manner and that's why I believe in the Sharia regulations it was put to be too regulated and there's a lot of uh timelines in it and a lot of restrictions for it especially this two or three times and the three the third time after divorce you cannot remarry unless there is this situation and so on I think it it is quite logical because marriage is not a a fun topic it is an an important topic and it's a serious manner if if it was left uh to be an easy uh yeah of course it should be last a last resort yes absolutely agree uh question is for I have a question for you since you're from Egypt um so the law only provides this insurance for men to pay and to pay then the the the the claim the insured amount which is at the end I mean the minimum is 25,000 Egyptian pounds is paid to the woman but there is no provision for instance that the other way around could happen like H is is it very unlikely or un common in Egypt that perhaps the woman would be earning more money and the husband would be a house husband that's actually a very interesting question I would say that when they draft the law they consider the the the majority and the the very common uh situation the what happened in society no you wouldn't see a housekeep husband um maybe you would house husband I wouldn't call him a house captain but he's not the captain um I would say that yes this is you wouldn't see that H occasion happening a lot and even if you see it you find it socially and culturally um something that is not very commonly agree agreed upon or acceptable so you wouldn't find the regulator confirming or considering uh a very odd occasion you know for something that is not very commonly happening and when they draft the law they feel like okay what is the most women are still the weakest uh Link in the relationship absolutely even with how modern Egypt is is becoming the last 20 30 years and it changes and how many women are earning much much more than they earning but still they look at the conflicts and the number of conf conflicts and they find that women are much more likely to be suffering financially and especially probably in the lower um the lower economic um sector section of the population I mean could be yes absolutely yes it could be I mean when we talk about lower social standards there would be everybody working and I I might say the women at less privileged social stand will be working much more than the women in the higher society and where the higher Society I would say that they are much more prone to such risks however the regulator would like to see I think they will be considering the amount of cases and amount of conflicts in front of the court where you see the women less privileged in that case they put something like that the protection is for the weaker for the for the party in the marriage that is usually considered as the weakest party in the marriage the big question mark be the amount no most in most in most cases right in most countries I think maybe there is uh there is maybe countries in the northern part of Europe are the few countries where maybe equality on that point of view is the the has reached a level that it's perhaps more on a um on a balance between men and women but otherwise I think everywhere is it's the same the woman is still the weakest party in a in a case of a divorce from a financial standpoint because generally women make less money so that's uh most possible I I I was I was just commenting on the amount I think the regulator have put a minimum for it I I I'll be very much interested into looking at how much would be the the the actual uh practice if how much people were going to be contributing because if they contribute more I guess the insurance policy pay in the end will be uh much better yeah because £25,000 are around $530 us yeah which doesn't sound much especially in Dubai money yes it's not something that would solve anyone's issue probably couple of days maybe three so that that bring me to the next question do you think we should apply this year have an insurance here I think it would be great uh especially because as you know the main issue here is when divorce happens is that because most families again we speak about majority of cases and not everyone is the same but the majority of cases you husband that has been moved here by the multinational corporation he works for and the wife leaves their job leave the the wives leave their jobs in their country of Orion and then they're here and they might find another job or they might not be able to find a job a job or they might decide to focus on the children because the husband is focusing on their career so in order to support the husband in their in his career um they would just avoid they would just not work for a few years and then the husband or the wife the marriage is not working and the husband uh so the wife needs to divorce the husband and one of the the M the main issue that we find affects the the affects women and children is there an inability for a certain period of time to have access to to funds especially if the uh divorce has not been amicable and very often men use um economic uh pressure in order to to um try to get the best out of the situation or force their um their decisions and their wishes into this very initial phase which sometimes I mean in Abu Dhabi it's a very short period of time is about 3 4 months can be as it can be a it can also be shorter but in duai it can extend to 6 months and more yeah if it is very litigious and if there are lots of discoveries to be made during the the petitions for alimony and so that that's something that is troubling for many women so I would think that a solution of this type uh if provided by the government would be an amazing tool to protect women it would also probably um assist the government into providing assistance to or funding you know um any place like you know refu refuge for women that are in abusive relationship and whose husband have left with no money uh with no access to groceries and perhaps with children so if there was something like that I think we would solve a lot of these very extreme cases so we're not speaking about the majority of cases but there are cases like that right and uh I'm often called by women telling me my friend has been left by a husband he left the country he left her in an apartment with no electricity no groceries and she has two children to feed and now her visa will expire and she doesn't know what to do and it's heartbreaking and I can't of course you know you can't help every single one and um there is a women Foundation is doing a lot to support this women but it's only one Foundation yeah uh so I think it would be an amazing tool maybe I don't know if they can do it in the form of an insurance as I was saying maybe they can do it the same thing they've done for uh you know an insurance for if you lose your job so you have a number of salaries that you can claim so they could at the moment of somebody moving here agreed that they have to pay uh especially if they come with a husband and children that they would have to pay to a fund a certain amount per month or per year to ensure that if something like this happen like you know before I don't know if they do it still but you know you you'd have to pay like to when you do a Visa you'll have to pay an amount to cover the ticket to security deposit to maybe they could do something like that so if you bring your wife and children uh and your wife is not working then you can ask um that specific employee uh to be in order you know if something happen or if you decide to divorce here a fund here is a fund you have to pay mandatorily I don't know 2% of your salary um per year in order to cover the possibility that you might leave your husband and children in the country without any support yeah and that would be amazing I think because so do you think I think it's a it's a brilliant idea I think it's uh it as as we as Dubai always show us as the UAE United Arab Emirates always uh show that they take brilliant ideas like this and they do it better than anyone yeah I can imagine that the if an insurance policy and the regulator uh would choose to in introduce a mandatory insurance policy for the marriage that is Affordable this is why I was thinking at a percentage of the salary right then you know each one can contribute more but could be a solution it will work I think amazing for the welfare of the society and everybody will be happy about it so I give my message to the regulator here and the insurance regulator in the UAE and the UAE government if there is any way to consider a new regulation to make it mandatory to protect the interest of families and interest of children and women who are here in the UAE to introduce an insurance policy that can be mandatory for married couple to protect the family from the um devastating uh consequences of divorce that would be very highly regarded and seen by the community yes and would be very we would be very happy to speak about it in our next podcast hopefully yeah of course yeah one more question because yeah I want to uh shake a little bit the conversation let's shake it we always speak how um the women are most affected and maybe the weaker part but I've seen through my experience and I'm I'm not a family law expert but I get involved in in mediation and sometimes in in Conflict we have seen the other way around a few times where it is unreasonably uh unreasonable requests by the divorced uh wife for example towards the the the husband and sometimes life consequences like life conditions change so a husband who gets paid 50,000 dham a month suddenly lose his job and he has a contract with an obligation to pay a big amount of money for his W ex-wife and children and then life change yeah and it's very common to happen especially here when we are all experts and so on what do you see happening at court really because I've seen the other side as well men complaining of we cannot afford it anymore and we have seen the men as well we have also made clients between our clients that of course I have to say that c that um M clients that come to us are very reasonable and they want to ensure that they give what it's du but they don't want to also uh become extremely litigious and so I guess this is why they come to a l fir like ours because they understand that we don't we don't look for we don't seek litigation at all cost uh we only really do it as an extremo like something that you do because you can't find other solution um I've heard of cases like this in my experience and what we've seen in the non-muslim courts so far the judges decisions are very reasonable very reasonable compared to the salaries earned by uh the fathers okay very reasonable so I'm not sure if things like this that describing where the father is struggling maybe happened before I yes they are not recent verdicts there the day before and mainly when now the law has incorporated in it to say that the judge as discretion in determining what the father must pay and it is only discretional again that the father might for instance in this sorry let's split Dubai and Abu Dhabi so with regards to Dubai so uh regulation number 122 of 2023 uh expressly says that um even the the women has the right to have accommodation paid by the father at the discretion of the judge so the judge has very wide discretionary power to decide if in the circumstances the woman has a right to receive the payment for accommodation and of course there are cases where women are working and perhaps making more money than the husband and in those cases I tend to agree I tend to suggest to my clients that in those cases the judge might not provide or might not might decide not that is not the case for the for for the father to pay for accommodation CU if you have a very good job and you're earning good money and you're able to pay for your own accommodation I don't see why the judge will you know consider it necessary um now for um for change CES exactly where the circumstances have changed decisions taken in regards to divorce they are always issued as a decree so they're not judgment they're not they're never final because life is not final things can change so you can always make a petition to the court and the court can make changes to the original issue decree if there are circum if certain circumstances have changed now in Dubai the law does not provide for a minimum number of years that have to be passed for you to be able to reassess or re-evaluate your your um uh your your contract or your the the economic condition that have been um prescribed by the judge in case of um an alimony uh petition being made and decided but in Abu Dhabi it the judge would tend not to consider any amendments before 2 years but also on the other end these decisions only have a validity of two years so after two years if things are really tough you can you can go back and say look things are really changed and I can't cannot longer afford it or you know my wife in the meantime left the country and left me with the children so I don't have I don't want to pay anymore any money because I don't she's not taking care of the children anymore and she's left and she's living in another country these things happen yeah and so of course we would have to keep this into consideration and the law does provide for the possibility of requiring um an amendment of The decree in case of change in circumstances of each of the parties the same thing can happen in the other the other way around like for instance you can have case where the husband at the time of the divorce was making a salary which was a lot lower and then suddenly get like super like increase in salary and um then the wife could request for the children to have a you know better education or a better lifestyle conditions um it is of course difficult for a wife for an ex-wife to prove or because all goes back into your ability to provide evidence of the facts that your ex is actually earning a lot more than what was you know uh what were what the salary was at the time when they were indeed married uh the law doesn't specify really if the changes can only happen going down or they can also upen can be made upwards so I'm assuming that you can make the request even for a change to go upwards another case where you know changes can be required is for due to inflation yeah so let's as you know uh in Dubai in the UAE in general for instance prices and cost of accommodation went up so high went up so high that sometimes um what you could afford or you could afford to to to to leave uh with a certain amount of money now it's completely insufficient to provide even um you know as an accommodation that is sufficiently close to the schools for the children where the child is attending so in those circumstances obviously uh the women will have the right to also require an ex a change in require for a change in the conditions of um divorce and alimon provision of course again we have to be able to prove so we need to provide the court for instance with previous tency contracts new tency contracts why were they for instance evicted and how much but you know this is part of the of the part of the game and part of our job as lawyers to uh make sure that we have sufficient evidence to support the petition for a change one way or other so if it is a change in circumstances and the father is actually no longer making the same amount of money and therefore is no longer able to afford to pay that much money or the circumstances of the father can also change because he's remarried uh so might have had another CH child from the second marriage and therefore in that case the resources of the father would have to be shared equally between the children the all of the children of the father so a reassessment of the economic condition of the father can be requested to the judge through a specific petition is there a protocol or let's say an industry approved percentage compared to what the father earns and what the alamon or what how much money he can dedicate out to the kids and to the exwife so there are certain uh I heard everything honestly everything under the Sun but there are again it's very short time that we are seeing this new law being practiced right so we have to again make a distinction between Dubai and Abu Dhabi yes Abu Dhabi regulation number eight is very specific to some part of the alimon that needs to be paid to the wife and then it leaves another type of alimony at the discretion of the judge Dubai leaves the the all in the hands of the judge however the judge will have to see a number of aspects that are listed by the law and those aspects are the economic conditions of the Father the duration of the of the marriage uh whose fault it is that the marriage has ended so despite the fact that this is a called a no fault divorce and so you can apply and you don't have to have a reason why the divorce is being applied for however specific circumstances to the reasons why the divorce has happened can be used during the petition for alimon to determine the amount of money that the woman or the husband that the woman will be entitled to as alimony for herself not for the children not for the children okay then what is the father obliged to pay the father must pay education uh clothing anything that is related to the children is the father responsibility yes as to the um payment of the rental of the uh place where the children leave uh because of the fact that you know here in the UA we divide we make we have to make a distinction between custody and guardianship yes the the custody is split 50/50 between the father and the mother but very often the children leave or the judge will decide that the children leave mostly with the mother why because the father are working full-time it's not fair for children to be grow to be brought up by a nanny and because the wife is usually a stay at-home mom so a home maker the wife is the one that keeps usually the children during the week and then the children go with with the father during the weekend we find that in Dubai alike in Abu Dhabi the Lord does not say that if the the any of the parents remarry then that parent loses the ability to guardianship of the child so the the parents marry Mary and that does not necessarily imply or affect custody however in practice we have seen in the few cases that we've handled that the judges will tend to when somebody has remarried will tend to agree with the mother that it is better so so if the father for instance is remarried the judge will limit the time that the minor will have to stay in the father's place or vice versa yeah of the spouse that Remar yeah especially if the remarriage or the marriage as happen very quickly after the divorce because unlike um like in the case for instance of a divorce due to Sharia law so where you have to wait three months before you can remarry um according to non-muslim um or foreigners uh federal law 41 of 2021 um there's no such a thing there's no waiting time so you have to wait the 30 days for the decree the divorce decree to be published and that's it yeah yeah so it is um you know it's harder it's harder in to to to convince the judge that the situation is fine and that they can leave with the father or with the mother that remarried so quickly after a divorce so I would say for anybody that perhaps is thinking of divorcing and immediately remarried think about think about the children because it is traumatic for a child to see you know to be to to go through a divorce and then immediately having to accept someone else someone else in the and then having to go and leave in someone else's house with somebody that they've not known for much time so it's a little bit tough on that in that regards so these are the these are the situation where we find that um and then of course because of that affects the alimony who has the children the most affects alimon so father tend to want to um uh question the ability of the mother of keeping the children and try to get you know more time with the children because they hope to to spend less money but the courts so far have been shown to be very smart in understanding in really speaking with the children especially Dubai where you have social services quite developed in terms of their ability of um um really getting into the nitt grey of the situation being able to speak to the children to the parents um we Abu Dhabi is also quite again conservative on that point T to protect women's right to rear their own children rather than you know giving them to a father that works 8 to 12 hours a day and has no support or no eny or no maid and you know so not every case of course is like you know those that I'm describing we are speaking about very you know majority situation where we the majority of cases that arrive to A litigation you have situation of course of conflict cuz otherwise divorce is is is hard by itself people try to find amicable solution before getting to a point where they have to you know fight in this in this circumstances so going sorry back to the economic rights and um Dubai saw lots of discretion from the judge in and so even the payment of the housing of the place where the children live that usually is with the mother is at the discretion of the judge if the father will also pay for accommodation in Abu Dhabi no it's a mandatory so the father is responsible to pay for accommodation where the children are leaving even if they're living majority of the time with the mother yeah uh they have to also provide education insur medical insurance or you know um sorry support many medical expenses um as well as food and anything really that the that the children need the mother instead and going back to to use asking for a percentage so in Abu Dhabi is very the is very specific so there there are two types of alimon one alimon is what the wife is expected to receive as part of um you know parting gift we could call it like okay we've been together for so many years you've contributed by working I've contributed by you know taking care of the children of the house and everything else so the judge will liquidate something that is um 25% of the monthly salary of the husband for a for the number of years that they've been married yeah on top of this alimony then the judge will also compensate the woman with a percentage of the assets that the couple has acquired during the time they've been married yeah so that percentage is at the discretion of the judge to decide how much it is in our experience a marriage of 10 years that percentage will be around 20 20 25% so as the years of marriage become more and more I would expect that somebody that has been married 26 to 30 years which is all like it's a half of your lifetime as an adult probably about 50% these are the this is what we've seen in practice so usually um Abu Dhabi I think 100% of the cases custody is is shared 50/50 but guardianship can be also 50/50 uh some some cases though it's not possible because of the fact the father works a lot and so they have to have instead of that visitation right sometimes the father don't want to have guardianship of the children uh because they know they can't really do it uh especially without help uh so sometimes it's difficult because the the the mother would like more involvement of the other parent in the life of the children but it depends you know every couple's really different so you have to see the circumstances by circumstances another thing that can happen and some parents do that especially Western couples in the best interest of the children they they can uh decide to to apply what is called uh Nest so the children stay in the nest so they they stay in the family home or what what was the family home where they were married and the parents are the one switching so they do maybe one week or two weeks each with the children in the marital home and then the other one goes and stay at a separate apartment for the other two weeks I think this is for the children is the best solution because then the children are not the one going to go back and forward with a suitcase at a very early you know stage of their life when they're still difficult for them to understand what is going going on it can be unsettling for some children for instance children don't really work well with change so for some children works and if the parents really have the best interest of the in of the children at heart that's something that they would tend to do um of course you have to be able to work with your partner to get to that type of arrangement but even in cases where there has been a high there's been a highly conflictual um divorce uh on the economic conditions um some parents have been able to maintain the nest as the at least as a minimum uh of you know um condition for the children to feel that they could still work well together and parenting the children together very interesting discussion let's go for a break have a coffee and come back to this very interesting topic amazing see you in a bit