Undersecretary of the Ministry of Justice Awatif Al-Sanad announced the start of the second phase of a plan to Kuwaitize judicial support roles with an emphasis on investigation clerk positions at the Public Prosecution. Al-Seyassah daily reported that the phase will terminate services for 62 non-Kuwaiti employees across departments that include Criminal Execution, External Communications, Public Prosecution, Criminal Registries, Notarization, Real Estate Registration, Sharia Notarization and Administrative Development and Planning. The undersecretary stated that terminations will occur only after national replacements receive full training and qualification to ensure seamless task handover. Al-Sanad added that the ministry is committed to a gradual and organized rollout that preserves operational continuity in all affected units.
The first phase of the same plan, which Al-Sanad detailed to the same newspaper, ended contracts for 54 non-Kuwaitis serving as hearing clerks, legal researchers and administrative coordinators at the Court of First Instance, Court of Appeal, Court of Cassation and Constitutional Court. According to the undersecretary the ministry intends to finish the second phase and achieve complete Kuwaitization of the targeted judicial support positions by the end of December 2026. Al-Sanad traced the initiative to a royal directive issued by His Highness the Amir Sheikh Mishal Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah that calls for increased reliance on Kuwaiti talent throughout the judicial sector. Minister of Justice Counselor Nasser Al-Sumait is supervising the entire program.
Ministry of Justice data provided to the Kuwait News Agency places overall Kuwaitization of the judiciary at 87 percent as of September 2026 with a schedule that lifts the figure to 92 percent by September 30, 2027 before reaching 100 percent on October 1, 2030. A separate KUNA dispatch quoted Al-Sumait as saying two additional phases remain after the current support-role effort to complete the full nationalization timetable. The justice ministry has coordinated with the Kuwait Institute for Judicial Studies to expand training pipelines for Kuwaiti graduates entering these positions. Earlier ministry announcements indicated that 82 secondments of judicial members were also ended in a parallel replacement wave.
Al-Sumait told the Kuwait News Agency that 1,295 Kuwaiti applicants sat for electronic admission examinations at Kuwait University for junior legal researcher posts that feed into public prosecutor roles. The minister noted that the testing system delivers immediate results without human involvement in grading to guarantee transparency. Times Kuwait reported that the percentage of expatriates within the Public Prosecution has already dropped from 20 percent to 17 percent since October of the previous year under the same nationalization drive. Annual admission cycles have replaced earlier waiting lists that sometimes stretched two years.
The undersecretary confirmed to Al-Seyassah daily that the Kuwaitization schedule for support roles aligns with a mid-July announcement that set full nationalization of those positions as a 2026 target. A later ministry statement distributed via the Kuwait News Agency declared the General Department of Experts 100 percent Kuwaitized as of early August after ending contracts for all remaining non-Kuwaiti engineering experts, accountants and legal researchers. Public Authority for Civil Information figures place the expatriate share of Kuwait’s resident population at roughly 3.3 million, providing context for the scale of national employment policies across government institutions. The justice ministry has stressed that each phase incorporates readiness assessments before any contract endings take effect.
