Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 11

Summary: - The law specifies the evidence by which rights may be proved, defines its scope and binds the judge to adhere to it and not go beyond it by adding other means. Mere statements or allegations by a litigant, a document issued by him, or information he recorded himself are not among the evidence he may submit to establish the validity of his claim. Reason: a person cannot himself create for himself a basis for a right that he acquires. Consequence: an asserted right not established by legally recognised evidence is equivalent to non-existence. - A female custodian’s delay in claiming custody remuneration does not, by logical necessity, lead to the conclusion that she undertook custody gratuitously; likewise, the opposing party’s assertion that he provided a maid for the female custodian rests on his mere statement. The challenged judgment’s reliance on this. A defect affecting the soundness of the inference, vitiating it through faulty reasoning and requiring its cassation. Rule: The law specifies the evidence by which rights may be proved, defines its scope and binds the judge to adhere to it and not go beyond it by adding other means not recognised by law, to protect litigants’ rights. Such evidence does not include evidence submitted by a litigant to establish the validity of his claim consisting merely of his statements or allegations, a document issued by him, or information he recorded himself, because a person cannot himself create for himself a basis for a right that he acquires. Accordingly, an asserted right not established by legally recognised evidence is equivalent to non-existence. Accordingly, whereas the challenged judgment based its dismissal of the appellant’s two claims for entitlement to custody remuneration for her daughter " ..... " and the expenses of recruiting a maid on its conclusion, as to the first, that she had agreed to perform custody duties gratuitously because she delayed claiming remuneration, and, as to the second, on the respondent’s adherence to a defence to the effect that he had provided a maid for the appellant, even though the reasons on which the judgment relied were based on evidence objectively unfit to support conviction, or the delay of the appellant—the mother—in claiming her custody remuneration does not, by logical necessity, lead to its conclusion that she performed custody duties gratuitously and to its extinguishment of that remuneration. Moreover, the respondent did not submit legally recognised evidence of his allegation that he had provided a maid for the child in custody, because the law specifies the evidence by which rights may be proved, defines its scope and binds the judge to adhere to it and not go beyond it. Such evidence does not include his mere statements or allegation that he provided a maid. In the absence of evidence thereof, the asserted right is equivalent to non-existence. Accordingly, the reasons of the challenged judgment concerning these two aforementioned claims involved a defect affecting the soundness of the inference and are tainted by faulty reasoning, which requires partial cassation of the challenged judgment insofar as it dismissed the appellant’s two aforementioned claims.