Kuwait court rejects compensation case

Manama: A Kuwaiti court has rejected a compensation case filed by former lawmakers and unsuccessful parliamentary election candidates.

The plaintiffs said that they wanted financial compensation after the parliament elected in February 2012 was dissolved by the Emir, Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah, in June 2012, according to Al Rai news site.

In its ruling, the civil court said that only the parliament was entitled to look into decisions taken by the emir in case his decrees were either endorsed or rejected by the lawmakers.

The case was filed by Mohammad Al Hayef, Adel Abdul Hadi, Abdul Rahman Al Anjari, Mohammad Flaitah and Abdullah Hadroos to ask for compensation for campaigning expenses, arguing that the parliament was dissolved “soon after it was elected”.

“I deplore the fact that all the compensation cases filed by former members of parliament and candidates were not accepted by the court,” Adel Abdul Hadi, a lawyer, said, quoted by local Arabic daily Al Rai on Monday. “However, we do hope that the court of appeals will change this decision and will accept the compensation claims.”

Kuwait was last year rocked by an unprecedented wave of protests after the Constitutional Court dissolved the parliament in June, saying that the decrees issued in November 2011 to dissolve the parliament elected in 2009 and to hold fresh elections in February 2012 were unconstitutional.

The 2009 parliament was reinstated, but under the onslaught of the opposition, it failed to convene and the Emir, Shaikh Sabah Al Ahmad, called for legislative elections in December.

In anticipation of the elections, the electoral law, adopted in 2006, was amended and slashed the number a voter could elect from four to one.

The opposition, wary that the amendment would reduce its potential, called for the boycott of the elections and spearheaded a street movement to revert to the four-vote system.

The pressure failed to yield any change and a new-look parliament was elected in December, prompting the opposition to look for new tactics to exert pressure, including filing court cases, after it pledged to bring it down.