Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 179

Summary: - Procedural laws apply from the date they enter into force to procedures not yet completed, even if related to offences committed before their entry into force. - Laws amending jurisdiction. Apply with immediate effect. Condition thereof: the case has not been determined by a final and irrevocable judgment. - The provisions of Law No. 1 of 1993 apply to anyone who commits, outside the territory of the State of Kuwait, an offence stipulated therein. Article 4 of Law No. 1 of 1993. Reason: it is a procedural provision concerning jurisdiction and must be applied with immediate effect from its issuance. An example of reasoning of a criticism in response to the plea that the Kuwaiti courts lack jurisdiction over the two offences of embezzlement and profiteering. Rule: Article 17 of the Penal Code provides that: "Procedural laws apply to every procedure undertaken during the validity of these laws, even if it relates to an offence committed before they came into force...." This means that procedural laws apply from the date they enter into force to procedures not yet completed, even if related to offences committed before their entry into force, and that laws amending jurisdiction apply with immediate effect, just as procedural law does, so long as the case has not been determined by a final and irrevocable judgment—as is the situation in the present case—when Law No. 1 of 1993 on the Protection of Public Funds was issued. Among its provisions, that Law included Article 4, which provides that its provisions apply to anyone who commits, outside the territory of the State of Kuwait, an offence stipulated therein. The Explanatory Memorandum to the said Law confirmed the legislature's desire to prosecute all types of offences against public funds stipulated in the aforementioned Law, even if committed abroad, adopting the principle of the objective nature of the offence. The incident at issue is the embezzlement of public funds and profiteering from official duties, and occurred during the period from 14 August 1984 to 10 February 1992, that is, before the aforementioned provision entered into force. Those charges had not yet been determined by a final and irrevocable judgment, which necessarily requires application of Article 4 of Law No. 1 of 1993 concerning the Protection of Public Funds to that incident, to the exclusion of any other provision, because it is a procedural provision concerning jurisdiction and therefore became applicable with immediate effect from its issuance. Accordingly, jurisdiction to try the appellant and the other convicted persons was validly vested in the Kuwaiti courts. The first-instance judgment, whose reasoning was adopted, supplemented and amended by the challenged judgment, reached the same conclusion in responding to the appellant's plea that the Kuwaiti courts lacked jurisdiction over the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and eleventh charges because they were committed outside the territory of the State of Kuwait, and the consequent nullity of all investigation and disposal procedures undertaken by the Public Prosecution and the nullity of the trial proceedings, which it accordingly rejected. It thus correctly applied the law, and the appellant's criticism of the judgment in this regard is unsound.