Abu Dhabi woman convicted of child neglect over beach incident and social media failures
An Abu Dhabi court found a woman guilty of neglecting a young girl left alone at a beach at night and failing to monitor her social media. The Federal Supreme Court later overturned a fine imposed on appeal.
Abu Dhabi woman convicted of child neglect after girl left unsupervised at beach
A woman in Abu Dhabi has been found guilty of child neglect after leaving a young girl alone at a beach late at night and failing to monitor her use of social media, khaleejtimes.com reports.
Prosecutors argued the woman did not take the necessary steps to protect the child's moral safety. The girl allegedly misused a social media platform, resulting in her photographs being circulated among third parties.
The prosecution brought charges under Federal Law No. 3 of 2016 on children's rights — commonly known as Wadeema's Law. The charge encompassed two failures: leaving the child unattended at the beach and neglecting to supervise her online activity.
Court of first instance and appeal
The court of first instance found the woman guilty on all counts, ordering her to complete two months of community service and to pay court fees.
She appealed the verdict. The federal appeal court cancelled the community service requirement and replaced it with a Dh3,000 fine. The woman subsequently challenged the enforcement of that ruling, but the court declared her objection inadmissible and ordered her to cover the associated costs.
Supreme Court overturns fine
The Attorney General then brought the appeal judgment before the Federal Supreme Court, arguing that substituting community service with a monetary fine had unlawfully worsened the convicted woman's position.
The Supreme Court sided with that argument. It noted that only the woman had appealed the original judgment — the prosecution had not contested it.
Citing Article 241 of the Criminal Procedures Law, the court held that an appeal filed solely by a convicted person cannot result in an outcome that places that person in a worse legal position than before. In the court's assessment, the Dh3,000 fine constituted a harsher punishment than the original community service order.
The Supreme Court consequently overturned the appeal judgment and referred the case back to the appeal court for reconsideration and a fresh determination of the appropriate sentence.
Source: Google News AE