Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 93

Summary: - The court’s own inspection, in the parties’ presence, of the forged document at issue in the case is an essential trial procedure in forgery offences. Its omission vitiates the trial proceedings. Punishing the appellant with the penalty prescribed for forgery of official documents without taking this measure invalidates the judgment and requires its cassation. Rule: It is established that the court’s failure to inspect the forged document at issue when hearing the case vitiates the trial proceedings, because the court’s own inspection of the forged document is an essential trial procedure in forgery offences, required by its duty to scrutinize the fundamental evidence in the case, since that document is the evidence bearing the indications of forgery. It must therefore be presented for examination and discussion at the hearing in the parties’ presence, so that each may express his opinion on it and be satisfied that the document at issue is the one to which his submissions related. That being so, neither the minutes of the trial hearings at both levels nor the reasoning of the challenged judgment shows that the court inspected the forged documents in the parties’ presence. Thus, in convicting the appellant of the offences charged and imposing a single penalty, namely that prescribed for forgery of official documents—the subject of the first charge—as the offence carrying the severest penalty pursuant to Article 84/1 concerning connection between offences, the challenged judgment is vitiated by a defect invalidating it and requiring its cassation.