Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 20

The Personal Status Circuit, whether at the Court of First Instance, the Court of Appeal, or the Court of Cassation. It alone, to the exclusion of the other circuits, has jurisdiction to apply the provisions of the Personal Status Law. The reason: the Civil Code refers matters of identifying heirs, determining their inheritance shares, and the transfer of estate assets to them to the provisions of Islamic Sharia and the laws enacted concerning them. Article 940, Civil Code. The Personal Status Law details in its third part the provisions governing inheritances, grounds of inheritance, conditions of entitlement thereto, persons entitled thereto, impediments to inheritance, persons excluded from inheritance, the order of rights to be satisfied from the estate according to priorities it specifies, and the destination of estate assets where there are no heirs. - The female appellant brought her action on the basis that the respondents deny her right to inherit from her husband's estate. Its implication. Inheritance is the fact from which the female appellant derives her right to the relief at issue, which is a personal status matter over which subject-matter jurisdiction lies with the Personal Status Circuit at the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal. - 321 - Personal Status. The Commercial Circuit at the Court of First Instance implicitly ruling that it has jurisdiction to determine the merits of that action. An error in applying the law requiring its cassation.