Dr. Khaled Fayez Al Huwailah
Assistant Professor of Public Law
Law Department, College of Business Studies
PAAET, State of Kuwait
& Kuwait International Law School

Abstract:

In view of the tremendous development in the field of means of communication and information technology, in our time, modern legislation has been keen to organize it in order to make the best use of it in a way that serves the state on the one hand, and individuals on the other hand. Therefore, the Kuwaiti legislator came up with Law No. 37 of 2014 regarding the establishment of the Communications and Information Technology Authority, which stipulated the establishment of an authority that would be concerned with the activity of communications and information technology; so that this activity is not far from the control of the state, and also in order to regulate it as well. The legislator was keen, in the same law, to set up a committee called the Dispute Settlement Committee specialized in examining the grievances that are submitted regarding the decisions of the Communications and Information Technology Commission, as well as settling the disputes that are brought before it, as it would settle these disputes promptly and within a short time, in addition to evade flooding the courts with a large number of cases and adjudicating them, in accordance with Article (55) of the Law establishing the Communications and Information Technology Commission.
In view of the importance of this committee and its pivotal role, the research tended to study how it was formed, the work procedures placed before it, as well as the nature of the terms of reference and decisions issued by it, and whether they were considered administrative decisions or judicial actions. The research also dealt with the judiciary competent to consider appeals against the decisions and grievances of the Dispute Settlement Committee.
The research concluded with several recommendations, the most important of which is that a decision to form a dispute settlement committee to be issued by the Board of Directors, which ensures that such a decision is made collectively, and not by one person, namely the Chairman of the Board of Directors, a matter that reflects positively on the formation of that committee. Likewise, it emphasised the need to stipulate a period of time for the work of the committee after its formation, for example a period of three or four years, which will ensure the independence of the committee, as this will result in tying the hand of the administration regarding its re-formation at any time, in the event that it wants to remove all or some of the committee members.

Keywords: telecommunications disputes, grievances regarding the decisions of the Communications Commission, dispute resolution, administrative decision, and judicial work.

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