Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 47

A litigant's capacity to litigate. Its criterion. The establishment of legal personality for him, whether a natural or - 12 - Civil Procedure legal person. Its implication. It is not a condition for admissibility of the action but a condition for the validity of its procedures. - Absence of capacity to litigate in the person who instituted the action or the person against whom it was instituted. Its effect. Nullity of the proceedings, and the plea is one of nullity, not nonexistence. - Defects in a judgment may not be examined except by contesting it through the appropriate avenues of challenge, not by an originating action for its nullity. The exception. The judgment's being stripped of its essential elements. - The defect alleged against the judgment not constituting a ground for its nonexistence. Its sanction is nullity, not nonexistence. - Nullity of proceedings owing to lack of capacity to litigate on the part of some litigants therein. It does not render the judgment issued in the action nonexistent unless its nullity is adjudged upon a challenge to it through one of the legally prescribed avenues of challenge. Expiry of the periods for challenge, a ruling of its inadmissibility, or the judgment's not being subject to such challenge. Its effect. Its acquisition of the force of res judicata. An example.