Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 55

Summary: - Administrative disputes prescribed by law. The Administrative Circuit of the Court of First Instance has exclusive jurisdiction to hear them. The time limits and procedures before it differ from those prescribed for other actions falling within the jurisdiction of circuits of general jurisdiction. - The legislature's treatment of an administrative authority's refusal to take a decision that laws or regulations require it to take as an administrative decision. Effect thereof. The claimant's formulation of his claims as encompassing annulment of the negative decision refusing to issue a birth certificate and civil identity card for his son falls within the jurisdiction of the Administrative Circuit of the Court of First Instance. The challenged judgment's departure from this view and its proceeding to determine the merits of the action. This vitiates it and requires its cassation. Rule: It is established in the jurisprudence of this Court that the import of Articles 1, 2, 5, 10, 11, 12, 13 of Law No. 20 of 1981 establishing a circuit at the Court of First Instance to hear administrative disputes is that the legislature established that circuit and vested it with exclusive jurisdiction to hear the administrative disputes specified in those Articles. The legislature provided this circuit with a special system for preparing actions before they are brought before it, and the ensuing special procedures for fixing hearings and notifying litigants. It prescribed a specific threshold for appeals against its judgments and assigned a special circuit at the Court of Appeal to hear such appeals after their preparation. It required service of the statement of claim and the appeal petition within the 3 days following filing of the petition, and imposed a fixed fee on some of these actions. It is apparent from this that these time limits and procedures differ from those prescribed for other actions falling within the jurisdiction of circuits of general jurisdiction. It is also established that the import of Articles 1 and 4 of the aforementioned Decree-Law No. 20 of 1981 indicates that the legislature treated an administrative authority's refusal to take a decision required by law or regulation as an administrative decision. That being so, and since it is apparent from the papers that the first respondent's claims in the action encompass a demand for annulment of the administrative authority's negative administrative decision refusing to issue a birth certificate and civil identity card for his son, a matter which the Administrative Circuit of the Court of First Instance has exclusive jurisdiction to hear and determine; and since the challenged judgment departed from this view, rejected the plea raised by the appellants in this regard, and determined the merits of the action despite lacking jurisdiction to hear it, it is vitiated in a manner requiring its cassation, without any need to examine the second limb of the ground of appeal.