Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 212

Summary: - Permissible criticism. Its nature. Where its limits are exceeded, there is no room to speak of it. - Where a critic goes so far in his criticism as to impugn dignity, he must be punished, as this constitutes the offence of impugning dignity through television or radio broadcasting. The challenged judgment concluded that the appellant exceeded the limits of permissible criticism. The objection to that conclusion is unfounded. Rule: Permissible criticism is the expression of an opinion concerning a matter or an act without attacking the person responsible for the matter or the person performing the act with a view to defaming him or diminishing his dignity. If this limit is exceeded, there is no room to speak of permissible criticism, since it is understood to mean that the critic has not gone so far in his criticism as to impugn dignity; otherwise, punishment is required, as it constitutes the offence of impugning dignity through television or radio broadcasting. Since the judgment concluded, through sound reasoning and acceptable substantiation, that the television programme forming the subject of the accusation contained material capable of impugning the victims’ dignity, disparaging them personally and harming their reputation with a view to defaming them, and since freedom of opinion, like other rights, has restrictions derived from its legal and social function and its objectives, the accused is considered to have exceeded those restrictions, as he did not remain within the scope of that right. Accordingly, what the appellant raises in this regard is unfounded.