Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 160

Summary: - Custom may not validly be relied upon when applying the law. The court’s disregard of the appellant’s complaint concerning her belief that the first appellant had obtained the medical report as a courtesy in accordance with established custom does not vitiate the judgment, so long as it does not affect her criminal liability or the existence of criminal intent. - The judgment’s conviction of the appellant of complicity in forging an official document and its conviction of the second appellant of the two offenses of forging an official document and counterfeiting seals of a government body, which it established against him and which he did not challenge. Her complaint against the challenged judgment concerning the absence of the elements of attempted appropriation of public funds and complicity therein is ineffective. Rule: Since custom may not validly be relied upon when applying the law, the judgment cannot be faulted for disregarding the first appellant’s statement concerning her belief that the first appellant had obtained the medical report as a courtesy in accordance with established custom, so long as this does not affect her criminal liability or the existence of criminal intent on her part. Accordingly, the complaint against it in this respect is unsound. That being so, the offense of complicity in forging an official document of which the first appellant was convicted has—as stated above—remained unaffected by her complaints against the judgment concerning it. The two offenses of forging an official document and counterfeiting seals of a government body and public officials, of which the second appellant was convicted and which the judgment established against him, and in respect of which he raised no challenge or criticism of the judgment, suffice on their own to support the judgment’s decision to refrain from pronouncing punishment. Accordingly, there is no benefit in their argument that the elements of the two offenses of attempted unlawful appropriation of public funds and complicity therein, of which they were convicted and for which the judgment imposed no separate penalty upon them, were absent. Their complaint in this respect is therefore ineffective.