Information Minister Sheikh Mohammad Al-Abdullah Al-Sabah said the government has finally submitted the controversial petition against the electoral constituencies law to the constitutional court on suspicion that the law is not in line with the constitution.
"The petition was handed to the court today" the minister announced at a press conference.
Justice and legal affairs minister Jamal Shehab told the same press conference that the petition relates to two articles in the law regarding the distribution of electoral constituencies and voters and also over the voting system.
The law was introduced in 2006 following protests by the opposition that initially led to dissolving the National Assembly and hold fresh polls in which the opposition scored a resounding victory.
The legislation reduced the 25 electoral constituencies to five with each electing 10 MPs. But the law allows voters to pick up a maximum of four candidates in a bid to allow minorities to bag seats.
The two ministers insisted that legal experts have expressed serious doubts over whether the law is in breach of the constitution with several of them insisting that if challenged before the court, it will be declared unconstitutional.
The ministers said that the government had the tough options of either dissolving the 2009 Assembly, which was revived by a court ruling in June, and then hold fresh general elections on the basis of the existing law or filing the petition to the court and waiting for its verdict.
The government chose the second option because it feared that if the elections were held on the basis of the existing law, it will be challenged in the court which could nullify the election process again, leading to another legislative vacuum.
In an unprecedented ruling on June 20, the constitutional court nullified the February legislative polls on flawed procedures, scrapped the 2012 Assembly and reinstated the 2009 Assembly, just six months after it was dissolved.
The 2009 Assembly failed to meet on two occasions earlier this month because the overwhelming majority of lawmakers boycotted it. Speaker Jassem Al-Khorafi on Sunday informed the Amir it was unable to convene the Assembly.
Shehab said the 2009 Assembly will continue as is now until the constitutional court issues its verdict on the electoral constituencies law which he hoped "will not take long".
Based on the verdict, the government will act, said Shehab, hinting that the government will issue a new law in an emergency Amiri decree if the court rules that the original law is unconstitutional.
The opposition has warned that if the government refers the law to the court it will boycott the forthcoming election and threatened to stage popular rallies in protest against the government move. The two ministers however said that as long as the protests were within the law, the government will not prevent them.
Senior lawyer and activist Mohammad Abdulqader Al-Jassem said that after reading the petitions filed at the court, the government wants to revert to the old electoral law system which divided Kuwait into 25 districts with each district electing two MPs.
"We respect the will of people, so who ever doesn't aim to participate in the elections or voting it's their personal choice. Our responsibility is to protect the interests and security of the country, which has the priority to the personal interests. This step will protect the election system and the nation's will," Al-Abdullah added.
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