How the UAE Is Governed: Federal Supreme Council, Cabinet and FNC

Most people who live in the UAE could not say where a federal law comes from, or why a dispute in one
emirate goes to a federal court while the identical dispute in another does not. It is not obscure
knowledge — it is the reason two neighbouring emirates can have different rent rules, different courts
and different licensing authorities.

This is how the UAE is governed: five federal authorities, seven emirates, and one
constitutional rule that determines everything else.

The founding, and the one date people get wrong

The UAE is a constitutional federation established in December 1971. It has seven emirates — but they
did not all arrive together. Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain and Fujairah founded the
federation on 2 December 1971. Ras Al Khaimah acceded in February 1972.

The constitution was provisional at first. In 1996 the Federal Supreme Council made it permanent. It
runs to 152 articles, setting out the basis of the federation and the rights of citizens across ten
areas.

The rule that explains the rest

The single most useful thing to know is the residual-powers rule. The constitution assigns specific
powers to the federation, and then provides that “the emirates shall exercise all powers not assigned to
the federation by this Constitution.” Articles 122 to 124 deal with the allocation.

The federation holds enumerated powers. Everything else stays with the emirates. That is why there is
no single national answer to a great many practical questions — and why our guides to
Abu Dhabi mainland
licensing and to Dubai’s
own economic agenda describe two different systems in one country.

The allocation is not frozen, either. In 2004, Article 121 was amended to extend federal legislative
jurisdiction to cover the establishment of financial free zones and the scope of exempting them from
federal legislation. Federal Law No. 8 of 2004 followed, allowing a financial free zone to be established
in any emirate by federal decree and exempting such zones from all federal civil and commercial laws —
while UAE criminal law continues to apply. That amendment is the constitutional root of both DIFC and
ADGM, and it is why our explainers on
ADGM’s English-law
courts, on DIFC wills
and on UAE arbitration
describe legal systems operating inside the country but outside most of its civil law.

The five federal authorities

The constitution names them: the Federal Supreme Council; the President and Vice President; the
Cabinet, or Council of Ministers; the Federal National Council; and the Federal Judiciary.

The Federal Supreme Council

This is the highest authority. It consists of the rulers of all seven emirates, or their substitutes
where a ruler is absent or unable to attend. Each emirate has a single vote.

Its voting rule is the most consequential sentence in UAE constitutional law:

“A majority of five of its members makes resolutions of the Supreme Council on substantive
matters, provided that such majority includes the vote of the emirates of Abu Dhabi and Dubai.”

Five of seven — and Abu Dhabi and Dubai must both be among the five. Neither can carry a substantive
resolution alone, and either can block one. Every account of how the federation actually works comes back
to that clause.

The Council formulates general policy, endorses federal laws, sanctions decrees, ratifies treaties,
approves senior appointments, and elects the President and Vice President.

The President and Vice Presidents

The Federal Supreme Council elects a President from among its members for a five-year Gregorian term,
renewable. H.H. Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Ruler of Abu Dhabi, was elected President on 14 May
2022 by decision of the Council’s members.

A detail routinely missed: there are two Vice Presidents. H.H. Sheikh Mohammed bin
Rashid Al Maktoum is Vice President and Prime Minister; H.H. Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan is
Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman of the Presidential Court, and also Vice President.

The President’s constitutional functions include heading the Supreme Council and managing its
discussions, signing and issuing federal laws, decrees and decisions endorsed by the Council,
representing the federation domestically and internationally, and exercising the right of amnesty or
reduction of penalty.

The Cabinet

Under Article 54, the President appoints the Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister and the
ministers. Under Article 59, the Prime Minister presides over Cabinet meetings. Sheikh Mohammed bin
Rashid Al Maktoum, Ruler of Dubai, is the current Vice President and Prime Minister.

The Cabinet implements the federal government’s general policy at home and abroad, drafts federal
laws, draws up the annual general budget, issues the regulations needed to implement federal laws, and
supervises the implementation of laws, decrees, decisions and regulations.

The Federal National Council

The FNC has 40 members, distributed by emirate.

Half the members are appointed by each emirate’s ruler; half are elected through an electoral college.
Members serve four years from the date of the Council’s first meeting.

It is a consultative body with real review powers rather than a legislature. It may amend or reject
federal draft laws, examine the budget, discuss international treaties, and debate the general affairs of
the federation. A member may question ministers and request an explanation on any matter within its
jurisdiction.

One provision has no equivalent in most parliaments anywhere: Emirati women must occupy 50% of
the FNC’s seats — twenty of the forty.

The Federal Judiciary

The Federal Supreme Court has five judges, appointed by the President after approval by the Federal
Supreme Council. Its exclusive jurisdiction covers disputes between emirates, the constitutionality of
federal laws, the interpretation of the constitution, crimes affecting the interests of the federation,
and conflicts of jurisdiction between courts.

Here the residual-powers rule becomes visible in the most concrete way available.
Three emirates run their own judicial systems — Abu Dhabi through the Abu Dhabi Judicial
Department, Dubai through Dubai Courts, and Ras Al Khaimah through RAK Courts. Sharjah, Ajman, Fujairah
and Umm Al Quwain follow the federal judicial system.

So the same commercial dispute, on identical facts, may be heard in an emirate-level court in one
place and a federal court an hour’s drive away. Add the financial free zones, with their own courts
applying their own law, and the country holds several parallel judicial systems at once.

Why it is built this way

The federation was assembled from seven states that had governed themselves for a very long time, and
the constitution was written to make union possible without requiring them to surrender everything. The
result is a system that concentrates the decisions that must be national — defence, foreign policy,
currency, nationality — and deliberately leaves the rest local.

The practical consequence for anyone living or doing business here is simple: always ask which layer a
rule sits on. Federal, emirate, or free zone. Our guide to
living in the Northern
Emirates shows how much that layering changes day to day, even within one small country.

Primary sources, all from the UAE Government’s official portal: the
Constitution
of the UAE, the
political
system and government, the
Federal
Supreme Council, the
President
and Vice Presidents, the
UAE
Cabinet, the
Federal
National Council and the
Federal
Judiciary; plus ADGM on the
federal
legislation behind the 2004 amendment to Article 121.