Kuwait City: Two Kuwaiti opposition lawmakers today lost their membership in the National Assembly, according to Al Qabas.
Speaker Marzooq Al Ghanim announced that the seats of MPs Waleed Al Tabtabaei and Jamaan Al Harbash have become vacant.
The unseating of the two lawmakers was based on clause 50 of the electoral law and article 18 of the parliamentary bylaw.
Eighteen lawmakers out of the 58 MPs making up the National Assembly voted against the unseating of Tabtabaei and Harbash who are out of the country.
The Constitutional Court had also ruled in favour of the unseating of the two lawmakers, who were sentenced to jail by the Court of Cassation for storming the National Assembly in November 2011.
Tabtabaei, Harbash and about a dozen former MPs and opposition activists who were convicted left the country to avoid serving the jail terms.
After the two lawmakers received the jail sentences, a constitutional controversy erupted on whether they should lose or keep their seats.
The National Assembly decided that it has the right to vote on the issue based on article 16 of its internal charter. It voted in favour of keeping the seats.
In its 11-page verdict, the Constitutional Court insisted that the voting process the Assembly undertook and its decision to keep the membership of the two lawmakers represents a "flagrant interference" in its authority.
It ruled that the members of the National Assembly automatically lose their seats once they receive a final condemnation in a criminal case, and accordingly Tabtabaei and Harbash should have lost their seats immediately after they were sentenced.
A number of MPs, however, welcomed the verdict as a victory of the constitution, saying that the voting on the membership was unconstitutional.
Yesterday, a Kuwaiti court sentenced Tabtabaei in absentia to seven years in jail for failing to tell his wife he had divorced her and continuing sexual relations with her.
Tabtabaei, who is currently outside Kuwait, already faces a 42-month jail term handed down in July in another case for storming parliament and assaulting police.
The appeals court upheld a 2018 verdict finding Tabtabaei - who divorced his wife in 2017 - guilty of adultery.
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