The Palace of Justice.

By B Izzak

KUWAIT: The court of cassation yesterday sent the case of former MP Bader Al-Dahoum to the public prosecution for opinion about allowing the opposition figure to run for election and then nullifying his membership in the assembly. Dahoum's case began when he registered to run in the December 5 general elections. An interior ministry commission deleted his name because he had been convicted of insulting His Highness the Amir in a 2014 ruling.

The lower court upheld barring Dahoum from running in the election but later the court of appeals overturned the ruling and allowed him to run. The last ruling was also upheld by the court of cassation, the highest court in the country whose rulings are final and cannot be challenged.

But as Dahoum won the election and became a member in the National Assembly, a small number of voters from his constituency challenged his election to the constitutional court. The constitutional court, whose rulings are also final, ruled that Dahoum's election was null and void on the basis that he had been convicted of insulting His Highness the Amir.

But Dahoum went again to the court of cassation arguing that its verdict allowing him to run in election was nullified by a court that is lower than the cassation court and demanded a solution to the contradiction in the two verdicts. The court of cassation will wait for the opinion of the public prosecution and then issue its ruling on the case.

In the meantime, government spokesman Tareq Al-Mazrem yesterday denied that the prime minister held a high-level meeting with the assembly speaker and a number of ministers including the interior and defense minister to discuss dissolving the assembly and suspending election for at least one year.

Mazrem said that reports about the meeting were totally baseless and no such meeting had taken place. The denial came after leading opposition MP Shuaib Al-Muwaizri asked Prime Minister Sheikh His Highness Sabah Al-Khaled Al-Sabah if the meeting had taken place and if a decision had been taken to dissolve the assembly and suspend elections for one year.

MP Hesham Al-Saleh meanwhile sent a series of questions to Justice Minister Abdullah Al-Roumi asking about public tenders won by MPs and their relatives since 2010. He demanded a list of the lawmakers who won such contracts and their relatives up to second-degree relatives. He also asked for details about the values of such tenders and if they involved any violations.