Atyab Al-Shatti

to Article 2 of the Kuwaiti nationality law issued by Amiri decree No 15 of 1959, “Every person born in Kuwait or born abroad from a Kuwaiti father is Kuwaiti". Consequently, the Kuwaiti nationality law clearly disclosed the transgression of the most important right of a Kuwaiti woman, which is her right to give her nationality, either to her children or her husband, and this is in clear violation of the provision of article 29 of the Kuwaiti constitution, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex.

Thereupon, discrimination between women’s right and men’s right to nationality is obvious, as article 7 of Amiri decree no. 15 of 1959 considers minor children of a naturalized Kuwaiti as Kuwaiti and gives them the right to decide to choose their original nationality during the year after reaching adulthood. But children of a naturalized Kuwaiti who are born after his acquiring of Kuwaiti nationality shall be deemed Kuwaitis in an original capacity. This provision shall apply to those who were born before the entry into force of this law.

Accordingly, the minor children of a foreigner who acquired Kuwaiti nationality are considered Kuwaitis by naturalization and by the force of law unless they decide to choose their original nationality during the year following their reaching the age of maturity. As for his children who are born after acquiring the Kuwaiti nationality, they are considered Kuwaitis in an original capacity, and this paragraph was added by law no. 44 of 1994 in which discrimination on the basis of gender was granted to a naturalized foreigner, while Kuwaiti women did not obtain this advantage, although the rights that the law granted to men have negative repercussions on the social level, as it will result in distinction and discrimination between members of the same family.

Paragraph 2 of article 5 stipulates that the son of a Kuwaiti woman married to a foreigner must maintain residency until reaching the age of maturity. If his father is a foreign prisoner, or his mother is irrevocably divorced, or her has husband died, the law stipulates that the minister of interior shall be given discretionary power in granting nationality, which makes it a grant subject to the discretionary power of the minister, while it is a human right.

Consequently, the administrative decision becomes in a legal rank above international treaties, the constitution and the law, which is deemed an infringement of the “principle of legitimacy”, which is considered the most important legal principle, in which the state with its bodies, institutions and individuals are subject to the provisions of the law, otherwise its actions are considered illegal and tainted by invalidity, as submission to the principle of legitimacy is the watershed that defines the idea of a legal state that respects human rights by defending the rights and public freedoms of individuals without discrimination based on sex.

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