Kuwait cabinet mulling how to respond to court ruling on parliament

Kuwaiti Minister of Information Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah said Wednesday the verdict of the Constitutional Court to annul the parliamentary elections of February, 2012, and reinstate the dissolved 2009 parliament is based on "artificial procedural grounds rather than practical ones." "The Amir Decree No. 443 for 2011 to dissolve the National Assembly had had a solid constitutional basis which is still there," the minister told reporters following an extraordinary cabinet meeting held shortly after the court ruling. Sheikh Mohammad attributed the controversy over the ruling to contradiction in some articles of the constitution, citing a ruling adopted by the same court in 1986 that the court has no mandate to rule on parliament dissolution. "Though the cabinet has yet to receive the executive text of today's ruling, a first reading of the verdict tells that it's a final judgment. The cabinet is studying how to deal with ruling in the light of the Amir decree in a way that could prevent an unnecessary legal controversy," he explained. Asked about the legality of the laws adopted by the 2012 parliament, Sheikh Mohammad said: "It goes without saying that such laws will remain effective as long as there no court ruling to annul any of them." He added that the constitutional court in today's verdict ruled that the regulations of the latest parliamentary elections failed to meet the sound legal criterions.