Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 432

Summary: - The Labour Circuit of the Court of First Instance. Its jurisdiction. Limited to determining labour disputes arising from the application of the provisions of laws enacted concerning labour and regulating the relationship between workers and employers in the private and oil sectors, as well as claims for compensation arising from such disputes. What does not detract from this: the legislature's intervention prohibiting 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 consequence. 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, it is not subject to the time limits for hearing labour actions, and 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 upholding the two first-instance judgments, the first issued by the Commercial Circuit declaring its lack of subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the action on the basis that it was a labour dispute and referring it, and the second issued by the Labour Circuit declaring the action inadmissible because it was brought otherwise than by the procedure prescribed by the Labour Law. A defect requiring its cassation. Rule: It is established—in this Court's jurisprudence—that the jurisdiction of the Labour Circuit of the Court of First Instance is limited to determining labour disputes arising from the application of the provisions of laws enacted concerning labour and regulating the relationship between workers and employers in the private and oil sectors, and determining claims for compensation arising from such disputes. This is not affected by the legislature's intervention in the Private Sector Labour Law prohibiting 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 system for loans removing them from the general provisions on jurisdiction. That being so, and since the true nature of the appellant's requests in the action is that no interest be calculated on the loan granted to him by the respondent bank during his employment with it, this action 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 reasons connected with its operative part, upheld the two first-instance judgments, the first issued by the Commercial Circuit declaring its lack of subject-matter jurisdiction to hear the action on the basis that it was a labour dispute and referring it, and the second issued by the Labour Circuit declaring the action inadmissible because it was brought otherwise than by the procedure prescribed by the Labour Law, it is defective in a manner requiring its cassation.