Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 1684

Res judicata precluding the renewed submission of a dispute. Its prerequisite. The judgment must have determined an unchanging fundamental issue contested by the parties in the first action, whose truth was conclusively and comprehensively settled between them by the first judgment, precluding its renewed discussion in the second judgment even on new legal grounds or factual evidence, and that issue must form the basis of the consequential rights claimed by either party against the other. What the court has not actually determined cannot be the subject of a judgment possessing the force of res judicata. - The criminal court's ruling that the civil action is inadmissible because it was brought after the legally prescribed time limit. Its res judicata effect is confined to what it determined. Effect: the civil court may determine the civil action brought before it within time and founded on the same basis. Reason: each action is independent in its procedures and time limits. - The rule in civil-rights actions is that they are brought before the civil court. Exception. Bringing them ancillary to the criminal action. A judgment ruling that an action may not be heard because it has previously been adjudicated constitutes an error in applying the law requiring its cassation.