Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 88

Summary: - The absence or non-seizure of the forged document does not necessarily entail failure to establish the offense of forging it. The determining factor is the existence of evidence. The court may form its conviction through all means of proof. The law has not restricted it to particular evidence for that offense. It may rely on a photographic copy or photocopy of the forged document. - Failure to seize the forged document or submit a photographic copy or photocopy of it so as to establish evidence of the occurrence of forgery and its attribution to the appellants, together with the insufficiency of witness statements to establish the offense. A conviction nonetheless. Inadequate reasoning and defective inference vitiating the challenged judgment—which followed the first-instance judgment in convicting the appellant. It requires its cassation. Rule: It is established that the absence of the forged document does not necessarily entail failure to establish the offense of forging it, since the matter depends on the existence of evidence that forgery occurred. The court may form its conviction in this respect through all means of proof, since criminal law has not prescribed a particular method of proof in forgery offenses. It may rely on a photographic copy or photocopy as evidence in the case if satisfied of its authenticity. It is established from the papers that the forged document—the passport renewal form—forming the subject of the forgery was not seized, nor was a photographic copy or photocopy of it submitted, so as to establish evidence that forgery occurred and attribute it to the appellants. Furthermore, the witness statements cited by the judgment—the complainant/ ..........., Major/ ....................., and the statement of ..................., an employee of the General Department of Nationality and Passports—are insufficient to establish the offense attributed to each appellant. Since the challenged judgment followed the first-instance judgment that convicted the appellants without addressing their defense in this respect, it is, in addition to being inadequately reasoned, vitiated by defective inference.