Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 24

Summary: - The investigator may address an arrest or search warrant to police officers without designation. Any one of them may execute it. - If the warrant expressly assigns its execution to a particular police officer. Effect: he must execute it personally and is prohibited from assigning another to do so except in case of necessity and by a written transfer at the foot of the arrest and search warrant, signed by him. Articles 64 and 68 of the Criminal Procedure and Trials Law. - Assigning a particular police officer to execute the warrant for the appellant’s apprehension and search, and authorising any competent police officer—without designation—to execute it, without requiring necessity or a written transfer at the foot of the warrant signed by the officer authorised to apprehend and search. Legally valid. A challenge to the contrary is unsound. Rule: A reading of Articles 64 and 68 of the Criminal Procedure and Trials Law shows that the legislature permitted the investigator either to address an arrest or search warrant to police officers without designation or to specify in the warrant that a particular police officer is assigned to execute it. If the warrant is addressed to police officers without designation, any one of them may execute it. However, if the warrant specifies that a particular police officer is assigned to execute it, the Law requires him to execute it personally and prohibits him from assigning another to do so except in case of necessity and by a written transfer at the foot of the arrest and search warrant, signed by him. Examination of the warrant for the appellant’s apprehension and search establishes that the investigator specified at its outset that a particular police officer, Captain .............., was assigned to execute it, then continued by authorising any competent police officer deputised by the aforementioned officer—without designation—to execute this warrant. This empowers any of those officers to execute the apprehension and search warrant without requiring necessity or a written transfer at the foot of the warrant signed by the officer authorised to apprehend and search. Accordingly, the police officer, Lieutenant .............., who is among the police officers legally competent to conduct apprehension and search, executing the warrant for the appellant’s apprehension and search upon assignment by the aforementioned officer constitutes a legally valid procedure producing its effects. Since the challenged judgment reached this conclusion, adhering to this view in rejecting the appellant’s plea in this respect, it correctly applied the Law, and the appellant’s contention in this regard is unsound.