Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 74

Summary: - Criminal intent in the offence of broadcasting a television programme containing polls and statistics concerning National Assembly elections without mentioning the information required by law through television publication. Its establishment: where the media material broadcast by stations, channels, waves and other means of television broadcasting and transmission, which the public can receive through technical means under their various names, includes the broadcast or rebroadcast of statistics and opinion polls relating to National Assembly elections without mentioning the entity that conducted it, its method and date, and the number included in the poll, and issued by a company not licensed by the State’s official authorities to engage in that activity. Determination of its existence or absence is a matter of fact. Criminal intent in publication offences is general intent. Its ascertainment is for the court of merits. The condition. Express discussion of it in the judgment is unnecessary. The condition: an example. Rule: It is established that criminal intent in the offence of broadcasting a television programme containing polls and statistics concerning National Assembly elections without mentioning the information required by law through television broadcasting exists where the media material broadcast by stations, channels, waves and other means of television broadcasting and transmission, which the public can receive through technical means under their various names, includes the broadcast or rebroadcast of statistics and opinion polls relating to National Assembly elections without mentioning the entity that conducted it, its method and date, and the number included in the poll, or where the statistics and polls are issued by a company not licensed by the State’s official authorities to engage in that activity. The perpetrator’s knowledge—the channel director, the preparer and presenter of the media material, and everyone responsible for broadcasting it—is thereby established. The law does not require specific intent in this offence; general intent suffices. Ascertaining the existence or absence of that intent from the facts and circumstances of the case is within the competence of the court of merits, without further review, provided that the implications of those facts and circumstances are not incompatible with the court’s inference. The judgment need not discuss it expressly and separately, provided it states facts demonstrating it. This Court shares the court of first instance’s confidence in the evidence it cited that the accused broadcast a programme prepared by the first accused and directed by the second accused about National Assembly elections for the year ..... on the ...... satellite channel managed by the third accused. It included a segment containing polls and statistics concerning National Assembly elections ....... without mentioning the entity that conducted it, its method and date, and the number included in the polls, contrary to Article six of Ministerial Decision No. 78 of 2012 concerning the Conditions and Controls for Media Coverage, Advertising and Promotion of National Assembly and Municipal Council Elections. This establishes both the material and mental elements of the offence of which the accused were convicted, as defined by law. The Court disregards everything the accused raised in this regard, seeing it as no more than an attempt to contradict the account formed in the Court’s conviction on sound evidence.