Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 188

Summary: - The Director of the Enforcement Department or the Deputy President of the Court of First Instance. They may issue an order on petition imprisoning the debtor. The condition for this. The debtor's refusal to comply with a final judgment where the conditions for issuing that order are satisfied. The issuer of the order. For that purpose, he may ascertain the extent to which grounds exist for issuing an imprisonment order or refraining from issuing it and conduct an investigation in that regard if the documents supporting the application are insufficient for him. - An application for an order to bring the debtor before the authority. Its nature. It is no more than an investigative measure preliminary to deciding whether to grant or refuse his imprisonment. An example of the inadmissibility of a grievance against an arrest and production order. Rule: The import of Articles 189, 292 and 293 of the Law of Procedure is that the Director of the Enforcement Department or the Deputy President of the Court of First Instance may issue an order on petition imprisoning the debtor—for a period not exceeding 6 months—if he refuses to comply with a final judgment, where the conditions for issuing that order are satisfied. For that purpose, the issuer of the order may ascertain the extent to which grounds exist for issuing an imprisonment order or refraining from issuing it and order an investigation in that regard if the documents supporting the application are insufficient for him. An application for an order to bring the debtor before the authority is no more than an investigative measure preliminary to deciding whether to grant or refuse his imprisonment. Accordingly, and since the documents establish that on 4/2/2013 the Enforcement Department issued a request for the arrest and production of .....—the respondent on appeal—before the Enforcement Department to take legal measures against her, as she owed the appellant, pursuant to a final enforceable judicial judgment, an amount of 5109,699 dinars, this, as such, is not an imprisonment order and consequently does not take its status as regards the admissibility of a grievance against it pursuant to Article 293 of the Law of Procedure. Accordingly, the aforementioned order is an arrest and production order for the respondent on appeal in order to take legal measures against her, and is thus an investigative measure preliminary to ordering or refusing her imprisonment. Since the documents contain no order imprisoning the respondent on appeal, a grievance against the aforementioned arrest and production order is therefore inadmissible. Since the judgment under appeal departed from this view and ruled on the merits of the grievance despite its inadmissibility, it erred in applying the law and must be set aside.