Suspension of Services Controls

Written by Mahmoud Zeidan | Legal Advisor

On the 11^th of April 2018 – 25^th of Ragab 1439 AH, His Excellency the Minister of Justice, President of the Supreme Judicial Council, issued a decision which determines the services suspension controls; as it may come to the reader’s mind that the procedure to suspend the services may be one of the guarantees to maintain the rights of each Claimant.

However, a circular was issued which determined these controls and listed them in several points, namely:

• The suspension must be carried out by a judicial order or decision, i.e. the suspension of services should be limited to what achieves the purpose, and it should not be extended to others, or expanded therein.
• However, the suspension should not result in a general damage; such as suspending the services of those stationed at the border or damage to the affiliates of the bodies whose services were suspended.
• In addition, the services suspension should not include the basic rights regarding treatment, education, work or documentation of civil facts, such as renewal of national identity; emphasizing that the main objective of the service suspension is invoking the Respondent to fulfill the claim with regard to its execution, and making the person, whose services was suspended, come to court in regard to its object.
• However, the regulations prohibited depriving the Respondent from his salaries if a decision was issued against him to stop his services, or deduct from his bank account under the decision of the Execution Court, but he is rather entitled to receive two-thirds of his salary, except in the alimony cases, where the deduction reaches half of his salary, and without prejudice to his entitlements from the citizen account and the cost of living allowance; however, it has been stressed that the seizure of one-third of the salary should not include the debtor’s entitlements from the citizen account and the cost of living allowance, based on Article 21 of the Execution Law.

Thus, it is clear to us and the esteemed reader that all the above controls come within a clear mechanism in line with the systems, regulations and laws; as one of the main objectives is not extend the damage to the Respondent, in addition to the speedy execution of the claim for the Claimant.

However, the Ministry of Justice has clarified that the decision came within the Ministry’s efforts to modernize and develop the work mechanisms and improve them in order to ensure fast performance and raise the work quality; denying at the same time the validity of the figures circulating on the social media sites regarding the number of people whose services were suspended by Justice; as the total number of people whose services were suspended by the Execution Courts and Departments has reached about 54 thousand beneficiaries during the current year.