Prof. Mouhannad Moukthar Nouh
Professor of Public Law College of law – University of Qatar

Abstract:

This article discusses the extent to which the usual state judiciary could revise arbitral awards issued in the context of disputes relating to governmental contracts through: the two stages of appeal on the one hand and the phase of granting the execution formula to the awards on the other. The importance of this review is highlighted by the fact that such review is limited in the framework of the arbitral awards of private law disputes. The rule such awards could be challenged by the assumption of nullification, which is a limited method of challenging the awards. This raises the question of whether these limitations apply also to the judicial revision in the context of the arbitral awards of disputes relating to the governmental contracts. If not, it is worth examining whether there is a specificity in this area that makes the usual state judiciary assume greater role in the two stages of appeal against the arbitral awards issued in the governmental contract disputes in addition to the stage of granting the execution formula.
Therefore, choosing this research was motivated by the desire to examine the special treatment usual state judiciary apply towards arbitral awards issued to solve disputes in the field of governmental contracts. In addition, it is aimed at discovering the differences of the treatment of such awards by the usual state judiciary in comparison to the arbitral awards issued in private law disputes. If such distinguish features of handling the arbitral awards of disputes related to the governmental contracts are existed this will broaden the scope of appeal and transfer it to a much more effective tool. In this case the control of the usual state judiciary will be extended to cover to the stage of granting the arbitral awards the execution formula to take the special nature of such contracts into consideration as they are related to public order and governmental funds.
The elements of the article will be addressed through comparison with the legal systems prevailing in France and Qatar. The reason for selecting French law is that it is a modern and sophisticated legal system where its accumulated precedents that determined specialty in challenging the arbitral awards issued in governmental contract disputes. Whereas the Qatari law was chosen for comparison by it still adopts the traditional approach prevailing in the Arab states in general, namely, challenging the arbitral awards in disputes of governmental contracts only by exclusive nullification. In Qatar, the oversight of the usual state judiciary through the stage of granting the arbitral awards the execution formula is extremely limited. In addition, the Qatari Arbitration Law makes it possible to appeal against these arbitral awards before the regular civil courts only, not the administrative ones.
The research was divided into two parts. In the first, the role of the usual state judiciary in the arbitral awards issued in the disputes of the governmental contracts was examined. The second part studied the role of the usual state judiciary in the phase of grating the arbitral awards the execution formula. The research used mainly the comparative methodology.
The most important results the research has reached is the jurisdiction of the governmental judiciary in considering appeals of arbitral awards in disputes related to the governmental contracts including the international contracts as long as the dispute is in connection to major governmental contracts, the arbitral Award was reached in France and the performance of the contract is taking place in France. Besides, the administrative judiciary jurisdiction covers all arbitral awards whether local or international. The jurisdiction includes the assessment of the arbitral awards in various aspects including the extent to which arbitral awards were governed by the rules of Public Order related to governmental contracts.
The research suggested following the above-mentioned approach in the State of Qatar; in order to preserve the legal entity of governmental contracts and to protect public funds to which these contracts relate.

Keywords: administrative Law, public Order, execution Formula, appeal, nullification.

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