Chief-in-Editor  Prof. Badria A. Al-Awadi

A historical ruling by the Kuwaiti judiciary was issued in November by the Cassation Court, affirming the positive role assigned to the judiciary in preserving constitutional and legal principles and rights and ensuring the rule of law, through ensuring the integrity of administrative decisions and procedures regarding observance of the principles of justice, equality and equal opportunities among citizens in the recruitment process in government agencies. The Cassation Court canceled administrative decisions taken by the Department of Experts at the Ministry of Justice regarding the appointment of 566 experts, and considered it invalid, and obliged the Ministry to re-announce these vacancies and to preventing those whose appointments were canceled from applying again.
The second administrative department at the Cassation Court, pointed out in its ruling regarding the appeal No. 911 of 2019 issued in the session held on 19/11/2019 that the canceled appointment decisions were marred by flagrant violations of the law and a violation of equality and equal opportunities for citizens. The administration has initially modified and manipulated the results of the written exams and personal interviews, then appointed people who either did not pass or obtained low results. Furthermore, experts and cooperative engineering and accounting experts were appointed in the General Administration of Experts without announcing vacancies.
The department added: “There is no doubt that these violations committed by the administrative authority are a violation of the civil service law and system as it ignores the principle of equal opportunities and equality between citizens. This behavior involved aspects of constitutionally prohibited discrimination as the constitution clearly establishes non-discrimination among citizens on basis other than justice as one of the public rights that holds the highest status. Hence, the result of these violations is the illegality of whatever is issued by the public authorities in this regard”.
Therefore, the court has concluded that the overturned decisions are invalid, have no effect nor significance and that it is a matter of public order which the court may consider. The ruling also indicates that the court has expanded its supervision over the legitimacy of administrative decisions to include the stages prior to their issuance.
It is noted in the court’s ruling its assertion on the following: “As the court completely overturns the decision, it realizes the difficulties facing the administration when implementing it. However, reverting to justice is better than insisting on falsehood,” and: “If slow justice is rather similar to injustice, then injustice is to deviate from equity after seeking the truth, and for the judiciary to accept every illegal decision in order to preserve null and void realities. Therefore, the court is obliged to rule according to the obvious justice, and the competent authority must accelerate the implementation of this ruling at any cost because revealing the truth is greater than any cost.”
This ruling, in addition to recognizing rights and canceling committed violations, constitutes a courageous jurisprudence, issued by a high court whose rulings and decisions constitute principles and directions that are observed by the lower courts. This paves the way for other future jurisprudence that emphasizes the expected role of the judiciary in promoting the principles of the rule of law, and in carrying out its role as a guarantee of rights and freedoms.
There are undoubtedly many questions and problems raised by this ruling. These problems require the discussion and commentary of specialists such as legal experts, councilors and academic scholars, which will definitely happen during the next stage.