Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 147

Summary: - The Labour Circuit of the Court of First Instance. Its jurisdiction. Confined to adjudicating labour disputes arising from the application of the provisions of laws enacted concerning labour and the regulation of the relationship between workers and employers in the private and oil sectors, as well as claims for compensation resulting from those disputes. This is not affected by: the legislature's intervention to prohibit the imposition of interest on loans granted by banks to their employees during employment. Its purpose. Not to remove loans from the general rules of jurisdiction. - The appellant's request in the action that no interest be calculated on the loan granted to him by the bank—the respondent—during his employment with it. Its implication. The action does not arise from the Private Sector Labour Law and does not qualify as a labour dispute in the intended sense; the Labour Circuit of the Court of First Instance lacks subject-matter jurisdiction to hear it, and it is not subject to the time limits for hearing labour actions; the Commercial Circuit of the Court of First Instance has subject-matter jurisdiction to hear it. The challenged judgment's departure from this view and its ruling affirming the two first-instance judgments, the first issued by the Commercial Circuit declining subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the action on the ground that it was a labour dispute and referring it, and the second issued by the Labour Circuit declaring the action inadmissible for having been brought otherwise than through the procedure prescribed by the Labour Law. A defect requiring its cassation. Rule: It is established in the jurisprudence of this Court that the jurisdiction of the Labour Circuit of the Court of First Instance is confined to adjudicating labour disputes arising from the application of the provisions of laws enacted concerning labour and the regulation of the relationship between workers and employers in the private and oil sectors, and adjudicating claims for compensation resulting from those disputes. This is not affected by the legislature's intervention in the Private Sector Labour Law to prohibit the imposition of interest on loans granted by banks to their employees during employment, since the purpose of that was not to establish a special regime for loans removing them from subjection to the general provisions on jurisdiction. That being so, and since the true substance of the appellant's claims in the action was that no interest be calculated on the loan granted to him by the respondent bank during his employment with it, this action therefore does not arise from the Private Sector Labour Law and does not qualify as a labour dispute in the sense intended in this regard. Consequently, the Labour Circuit of the Court of First Instance lacks subject-matter jurisdiction to hear it, and it is not subject to the time limits for hearing labour actions; rather, the Commercial Circuit of the Court of First Instance has subject-matter jurisdiction to hear it. Since the challenged judgment departed from this view and, in its reasoning linked to its operative part, affirmed the two first-instance judgments, the first issued by the Commercial Circuit declining subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the action on the ground that it was a labour dispute and referring it, and the second issued by the Labour Circuit declaring the action inadmissible for having been brought otherwise than through the procedure prescribed by the Labour Law, it is defective in a manner requiring its cassation.