Court overrules Cabinet act to revoke citizenships

Petitions in ‘royal’ libel case dismissed

By Jaber Al-Hamoud

KUWAIT CITY, March 26: The Administrative Court cancelled the Cabinet’s decision to revoke the citizenships of a Kuwaiti citizen and 46 others who received the Kuwaiti citizenship through him.

In its verdict, the court pointed out two contradicting principles in this case and other similar cases. It explained that the first one is related to the court verdict which gave the Administrative Court the right to handle citizenship revocation cases. The other principle is that citizenship revocation cases are categorized as a sovereign matter.

The court stated that the basis of its verdict is the law that gives the court the authority to determine whether the citizenship was acquired legally or through fraudulent means.

In this case, the prosecution did not provide any documents that implied that investigations were conducted to affirm that the citizenship was acquired fraudulently.

In addition, the court said, in other similar cases, the final verdict has not been issued. This therefore gives the Administrative Court the authority to cancel the Cabinet’s decision due to lack of any evidences that suggests otherwise. This can be reviewed only after the final verdict in other similar cases is issued in order to clear the contradictions concerning such type of cases.

Petitions dismissed:

The Court of Cassation dismissed the petitions presented by three individuals against whom a State Security case was filed over allegations of offending the entity of His Highness the Amir.

The court upheld the verdicts issued by the Court of First Instance and Court of Appeals, as per which the first suspect, who was extradited to Kuwaiti authorities by Qatari authorities, was sentenced to sevenyear imprisonment with hard labor, and the second and third suspects were sentenced to ten-year imprisonment.