Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 13

Summary: - A judge trying an accused must have absolute freedom in that trial, unrestricted by anything contained in another judgment concerning another incident involving the same accused, without regard to whether deciding according to the conviction he has formed results in a contradiction between his judgment and the previous judgment delivered according to the conviction formed by the other judge. - An objection based on a previous acquittal concerning incidents similar to the incident charged. Argument over the assessment of evidence. Inadmissible before the Court of Cassation. - The appellant was not tried for the offense of embracing an ideology, mere sympathy with a prohibited organization, or the legally guaranteed freedom of affiliation that does not harm others. These differ from the offenses of undertaking a hostile act against a foreign state, joining and calling for a prohibited group, financing terrorism, and training in carrying and using weapons. Rule: It is established that a judge trying an accused must have absolute freedom in that trial, unrestricted by anything contained in another judgment concerning another incident involving the same accused, without regard to whether deciding according to the conviction he has formed results in a contradiction between his judgment and the previous judgment delivered according to the conviction formed by the other judge. Accordingly, the second appellant's contention that he was previously acquitted in other incidents similar to the incident charged—on the basis that mere support for and sympathy with the organization's ideology does not constitute a hostile act against the state—is no more than argument over the assessment of evidence, intended to cast doubt on the prosecution evidence in which the court had confidence and to question its conclusions, which may not be raised before the Court of Cassation. Moreover, none of the appellants was tried for the ideology he embraces, mere sympathy with the prohibited organization, or the legally guaranteed freedom of belief—as raised by the second appellant in his ground of challenge—that does not harm others, but rather for the acts they committed constituting the offenses of which they were convicted. The objection in this regard is therefore unsound.