Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 158

Summary: - Assessment of the grounds for leniency or their absence. An absolute power of the trial judge. Reason therefor. - The judge’s application of aggravating or mitigating circumstances. He is not required to state the grounds for the reasons for which he imposed the punishment. Reason: leniency is an inward feeling aroused in the judge’s mind by various causes which he cannot portray with pen or tongue. A statement that he feels it suffices. Rule: It is established that assessing the grounds for leniency or their absence is entrusted to the trial judge without review in that respect, and that the legislature has left the judge absolute power to assess the punishment within the statutory limits for the offence and to apply the circumstances he considers aggravating or mitigating, without being obliged to state the grounds for those reasons for which he imposed the punishment to the extent he deemed appropriate. Leniency is an inward feeling aroused in the judge’s mind by various causes which he sometimes cannot identify so as to portray them with pen or tongue. Thus the law has not required him—and could not have required him—to state them; rather, it accepts his mere statement that this feeling exists within him without asking him for evidence of it.