Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 66

Summary: - Appeal in criminal matters. A personal right vested in the litigant himself, exercised personally or through an agent whom he appoints for this purpose under a power of attorney satisfying its legal requirements and containing authorization to lodge an appeal. - Criminal procedural capacity becomes complete upon attaining eighteen years of age. This requires that the appeal be lodged personally or through another person representing him under a power of attorney permitting this. Failure to comply. Its effect: inadmissibility of the appeal. - Appointment by the father of each appellant of a lawyer to lodge an appeal on their behalf when each had attained eighteen years of age. Its effect: inadmissibility of the appeal. Rule: Article 202 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and Trials provides that: "An appeal shall be lodged by a petition submitted to the registry of the court that issued the judgment, and the petition shall be signed by the appellant litigant or his representative...". This indicates that an appeal in criminal matters is a personal right vested in the litigant himself, exercised personally or through an agent whom he appoints on his behalf for this purpose, under a power of attorney satisfying its legal requirements and containing authorization for the agent to challenge the judgment by appeal. That being so, the challenged judgment recorded its examination of the powers of attorney under which the appeals were lodged on behalf of the first, third, and fourth appellants. It became apparent to the court that they were issued by the father of each of them—to the lawyer who lodged the appeal on behalf of each—in his capacity as the natural guardian of his minor son, although each appellant had exceeded eighteen years of age at the time the appeal was lodged and its petition drawn up. His criminal procedural capacity had thus become complete, requiring him either to lodge the appeal personally or through another person representing him under a power of attorney permitting him to exercise that right; otherwise, the appeal would be inadmissible. Since the challenged judgment adhered to this view and ruled that the appeal lodged by the aforementioned appellants was inadmissible because it was lodged by a person lacking capacity to do so, it correctly applied the law, and the criticism directed against it in this regard is unfounded.