Appeals

What you can appeal

Any decision UMA has taken about your certification. In practice that means:

• a decision to refuse, suspend, withdraw or reduce the scope of a certification
• a nonconformity raised at audit that you believe is not a nonconformity
• the grading of a finding — a major where you believe it is minor
• a refusal to accept your application
• the composition of an audit team, where you believe a member is not impartial

Who may appeal

The organisation the decision concerns. If you are certified by us, or applied to be, you can appeal a decision about you. If you are not, what you have is a complaint, which is a different route and is open to anyone.

How to lodge one

Write to us at contact@umacerts.ae within 30 days of being notified of the decision. Tell us:

• the certificate number, or the audit or decision concerned
• the date you were notified
• what you believe we got wrong, and why
• anything you want considered that we may not already have

You do not need a particular form of words, and you do not need a lawyer. What matters is that we can tell which decision you mean and what your argument is.

What happens next

1. We acknowledge it in writing within 5 working days, confirming what we understand you to be appealing.
2. We appoint a reviewer who had no part in the decision. Not the auditor, not the audit team, and not the person who took the decision being appealed. Where nobody inside UMA qualifies — because of the size of the body or the competence the standard requires — we engage a competent person from outside and record who they were.
3. The reviewer examines the evidence, not the personalities: the audit record, the finding, the standard, and what you have told us.
4. We decide within 60 days and tell you in writing, with the reasons. If an appeal is upheld, we carry the outcome through — including reinstating a certification that was suspended, where that is what the outcome requires.

While an appeal is open

Lodging an appeal will never be held against you. It does not affect your existing certification, it does not affect how you are treated in future audits, and we do not discriminate against anyone who appeals.

A suspension already in force stays in force while the appeal is considered — otherwise an appeal would work as a way of pausing a suspension, which would defeat what a suspension is for. If the appeal is upheld, the suspension is lifted and the register is corrected.

If you are still not satisfied

The appeal decision is UMA's final position. Once accreditation has been granted, you may raise the matter with our accreditation body; until then, and in any case, you may raise it with any regulator with jurisdiction over your sector.