Top Kuwaiti court voids curb on expats
Court rules as unconstitutional link between departure and end-of-service benefits
Cairo: A top Kuwaiti court has dismissed as unconstitutional a condition set by the country’s Civil Service Commission linking expatriates’ access to their end-of-service on transferring their residency permits to presenting a departure notification, local media reported.
The Constitutional Court said in its ruling that the commission’s 2018 decision violates the principle of equality established in the Kuwaiti constitution as the decision draws distinction between two categories of non-Kuwait employees allowing one to obtain their end-of-service gratuity without having to present the departure notification while denying the other the same treatment.
“The end-of-service gratuity is part of rights that the administrative agency is committed to deliver upon the end of the employee’s service and has no constitutional justification to withhold it,” the court added, according to Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida.
Foreigners make up nearly 3.4 million of Kuwait’s overall population of 4.6 million.