Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 445

Summary: - Equality in its essence. Its meaning. Equal treatment of those alike in situation and status. The principle of equality before the law. What is meant by it. - The Supreme Judicial Council’s issuance of a decision approving the entitlement of members of the judiciary and members of the Public Prosecution who have spent a specified period in the judicial authority to the issuance of a fuel consumption card for the car allocated to them by the State, with the Ministry of Justice coordinating with the competent authorities to implement that decision. Its effect. The administrative authority’s obligation to implement the decision, applying the principle of equal treatment of those alike in situation and status. The administrative authority’s violation of that principle by selectively implementing the decision for certain members of the judiciary on the same basis as ministry undersecretaries, despite the Civil Service Bureau’s conclusion that the grade of counsellor is equivalent to that of ministry undersecretary, and without legal justification. A violation of the law requiring annulment of the decision. Rule: It is settled that an annulment action is an action in rem whose subject matter is the challenge to the administrative decision itself, and the judgment rendered therein has binding effect against all persons, whether or not represented therein, whenever it affects an established right of theirs. It is also settled in the jurisprudence of this Court that, once an administrative decision has been issued fulfilling its legal requirements, it is effective immediately upon its issuance by the authority empowered to issue it, without need for ratification by a higher authority, and produces its legal effect immediately and directly, unless its implementation requires measures to put it into execution in a manner producing its effects. It is also settled that the Constitution has been careful to affirm the principle of equality in several of its provisions, including Article (29), which provides that: “People are equal in human dignity, and they are equal before the law in public rights and duties, without discrimination among them in that regard on grounds of sex, origin or religion.” Equality means, in its essence, equal treatment of those alike in situation and status, and different treatment of those different in situation and status. What is meant by the principle of equality before the law is that everyone should be equal before the law, without distinction or discrimination among them. The rights that the law grants and that people enjoy afford them protection according to defined rules and receive the same protection from the law and to an equal degree, and everyone is equally subject, without distinction, to the duties imposed upon people by the law. That being so, the Supreme Judicial Council issued, on 7/3/2013, Decision No. (8) of 2013, approving the entitlement of every member of the judiciary and member of the Public Prosecution who had completed (25) years of actual service in the judicial authority to the issuance of a fuel consumption card for the car allocated to him by the State, with the Ministry of Justice coordinating with the competent authorities to implement that decision. Furthermore, applying the rule of equality in the abstract, the administrative authority should have accorded equal treatment to those alike in situation and status, rather than selectively granting a fuel consumption card and a mobile telephone with a paid line to certain members of the judicial authority, on the same basis as ministry undersecretaries, to the exclusion of others, despite the Civil Service Bureau’s conclusion that the grade of counsellor is equivalent to that of ministry undersecretary. Since the administrative authority departed from that course without justification in fact or in the correct law, its 2 decisions, as such, are tainted by the defect of violation of the law, requiring judgment annulling them and granting the applicants—except the third and fourth—their requests in the manner stated in the operative part.