Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 262

Summary: - Army personnel. Their affairs are governed by the provisions of the laws and decisions concerning the army. They are not subject to the provisions of the Decree-Law issued concerning the civil service. Rule: It is established in the jurisprudence of this Court that an employee’s entitlement to any benefit depends on the fulfilment of all the conditions necessary for entitlement thereto under the law and the decisions governing it. The general rule is that the provisions of laws and ministerial decisions having equivalent effect apply only to what occurs from their effective date and have no effect on what occurred before them. Courts may not reach back into the past to apply a new ministerial decision to legal relationships that arose before its entry into force, or to the effects produced in the past by those relationships before the new ministerial decision took effect. Rather, when examining these legal relationships and their resulting effects, the judge must refer to the ministerial decision in force when they arose and when they produced those effects. Army personnel’s affairs—including the receipt of their salaries—are governed by the provisions of the laws and decisions concerning the army, and they are not subject to the provisions of the Decree-Law issued concerning the civil service.