Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 48

Summary: - The police investigator’s initial involvement with the incident because it apparently constituted a misdemeanour, and his undertaking investigation, disposition and prosecution procedures under Article 9/2 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Trials to ascertain the truth. The effect: these are not undermined by the incident constituting a felony within the Public Prosecution’s competence to investigate, dispose of and prosecute. The reason: procedural acts are, in principle, conducted on the basis of appearances and are not subsequently invalidated in light of what the facts reveal, because those acts are governed by their premises, not their results. An example concerning a police investigator’s investigation of an incident of negligent homicide and reckless driving of a motor vehicle—both misdemeanours—and his referral of the accused to Forensic Evidence for the necessary analysis after the accused attributed the accident to his consumption of an unknown substance; the analysis established that it was the narcotic substance hashish—a felony—and the accused subsequently pleaded the invalidity of the analysis result on the ground that the Public Prosecution has competence in felony matters. Rule: Since it is apparent from the facts of the case established by the judgment—as previously mentioned—that the police investigator initially became involved with the incident because, as it then appeared, it constituted the offences of negligent homicide and driving a motor vehicle recklessly, negligently and in a condition endangering the appellant, others and property—misdemeanours which the police investigator is competent to investigate, dispose of and prosecute under the second paragraph of Article nine of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Trials—the referral of the appellant to Forensic Evidence for examination, after he told the investigator that he had been under the influence of medicine he had taken when driving the vehicle and causing the accident, to ascertain the accused’s actual condition at the time of the accident and the nature of the substances under whose influence he was driving his car, was a valid measure taken by a competent person. It is not undermined by the subsequent discovery, upon examination of his urine sample, of metabolites of the narcotic substance hashish, consumption of which constitutes a felony within the Public Prosecution’s competence to investigate, dispose of and prosecute under the first paragraph of the aforementioned Article nine. Procedural acts are, in principle, conducted on the basis of appearances and are not subsequently invalidated in light of what the facts reveal; they are governed by their premises, not their results. Accordingly, the appellant’s allegation that the procedures for taking his sample on the investigator’s order were invalid because the incident attributed to him was a felony within the Public Prosecution’s competence is unsound. The judgment cannot be faulted for subsequently relying, in convicting him, on the results of the analysis of the sample taken from him pursuant to a lawful and valid procedure.