Transmissão pela linha materna (por força da lei + discricionária) Art 10 Bis)

AE-BTH-02 is the maternal-line transmission route for UAE nationality, and it is structurally split into two legally distinct mechanisms that must never be collapsed. The FIRST is acquisition BY OPERATION OF LAW under Federal Law No. 17 of 1972 Art 2(c) and Art 2(d): a person born in the State or abroad to a UAE-national mother acquires nationality automatically, but ONLY in the narrow cases where the father is legally absent from the picture - i.e. where filiation to the father is not substantiated (Art 2(c)) or where the father is of unknown nationality or stateless (Art 2(d)). The SECOND is a DISCRETIONARY ministerial grant under Art 10 Bis (inserted by Federal Decree-Law No. 16 of 2017): nationality 'may be granted' to the sons and daughters of a UAE-national married to an alien after the lapse of no less than six years from the child's date of birth, with a daughter-specific sub-rule in the second paragraph. The defining feature of this route is the gap between the automatic patrilineal transmission a UAE-national father enjoys under Art 2(b) (AE-BTH-01) and the conditional, delayed, discretionary pathway a UAE-national mother married to a known foreign father must use. Where the father is a known foreign national, the child does NOT acquire nationality at birth and is wholly dependent on the permissive Art 10 Bis grant. This is the country's clearest statutory gender asymmetry in nationality transmission, and the entire applicant-advice question turns on whether 'may be granted' plus the Executive-Regulation controls function as a near-entitlement on facts met or as a genuine discretionary screen.

Eligibility bifurcates by the father's legal status. AUTOMATIC TRACK (Art 2(c)/(d)): the applicant is born in or outside the State to a mother who is a UAE national by operation of law, AND one of two conditions holds - either filiation to the father is not substantiated (Art 2(c)), or the father is of unknown nationality or is stateless (Art 2(d)). On either fact, nationality vests at birth with no waiting period, no application threshold and no discretionary screen; the child is a national for all purposes from birth. DISCRETIONARY TRACK (Art 10 Bis ¶1): where the mother is a UAE national married to an ALIEN (a known foreign national), the child does NOT acquire nationality by operation of law and must instead qualify for the Art 10 Bis grant. The express statutory conditions are (i) the child is a son or daughter of the national mother; (ii) at least six years have elapsed from the child's date of birth; and (iii) the mother held UAE nationality at the time of birth AND continuously until the date of the nationality application - a mother who naturalized only after the birth does not satisfy this. The grant is then made 'in accordance with the regulations determined in the Executive Regulations', importing further unstated sub-statutory controls. DAUGHTER SUB-RULE (Art 10 Bis ¶2): a daughter of a UAE-national woman, born to a foreign-national father, who is herself married to a foreigner, may be granted nationality per the Executive-Regulation controls - a second-generation provision aimed at keeping the maternal line from terminating where a daughter again marries out. The boundary between the two tracks is sharp: Art 2(c)/(d) and Art 10 Bis do NOT overlap - the automatic cases apply only where the father is unknown/stateless/unsubstantiated, and Art 10 Bis is the route precisely for the child of a known foreign father.

The route rests on two clusters of Federal Law 17/1972. The by-operation-of-law leg is Art 2: the chapeau provides 'A national who shall be deemed to have acquired nationality by operation of law is:', then Art 2(c) covers 'Anyone born in the State or abroad to a mother who is a national by operation of law, whose filiation to his/her father is not substantiated', and Art 2(d) covers 'Anyone born in the State or abroad to a mother who is a national by operation of law, or to a father with unknown or without citizenship.' These are automatic, unconditional acquisitions on the same operation-of-law footing as paternal descent under Art 2(b); they are in force since the statute's effective date of 28/12/1972. The discretionary leg is Art 10 Bis, inserted by Federal Decree-Law No. 16 of 2017 (gazette 28/09/2017 Vol. 622; effective the next day, 29/09/2017). Its first paragraph: 'Nationality may be granted to the sons and daughters of a national who is married to an alien after the lapse of a period of no less than six years from the date of birth; provided that the mother has the nationality at the time of birth until the date of application for nationality, in accordance with the regulations determined in the Executive Regulations.' Its second paragraph adds a daughter sub-rule: 'Nationality may be granted to a daughter of a national woman, from a father of foreign nationality, and who is married to a foreigner, in accordance with the controls set in the Executive Regulations of the present Decree-Law.' Constitutionally, nationality is an exclusive federal competence (Constitution Art 120(16); single nationality Art 8), so no emirate can supplement or override these federal descent rules.