Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 31

Summary: - Inability to earn. Established by young age or being female, unless she is married, in which case her maintenance is incumbent on her husband. Rule: It is established under Sharia that children's maintenance arises from their being part of the parent and is conditional upon need; if need is removed, maintenance ceases. Article 202 of Law No. 51 of 1984 concerning Personal Status provides: "A father of means, and ascending, must maintain his poor child who is unable to earn, and descending, until the latter becomes self-sufficient." Its import is that, if the child is poor, young or adult, male or female, maintenance is incumbent upon the father of means, and ascending, so long as his child is unable to earn and has no property sufficient for maintenance. Inability to earn is established by young age or being female, unless she is married, in which case her maintenance is incumbent upon her husband. A student is also considered unable to earn because engagement in acquiring knowledge prevents earning, necessitating maintenance, including housing rent as part thereof. Assessment of need and want of maintenance and whether income received by the son or daughter removes that need wholly or partly are questions of fact reserved to the trial court. This is, however, conditional upon its ruling being based on reasonable grounds sufficient to support it and grounded in the record. The judgment's reasons are vitiated by cancellation in inference if the court bases its conviction on evidence objectively unfit to persuade, fails to understand the facts established before it, or there is a contradiction between these elements, as where the conclusion reached does not logically follow from the elements established before it. Accordingly, the challenged judgment reversed the first-instance judgment insofar as it awarded maintenance of both kinds to the second appellant and housing rent to the appellants, on the basis that the second appellant received monthly assistance from the Ministry of Social Affairs and that the Ministry of Higher Education bore the expenses of her studies abroad, making her financially self-sufficient and disentitling her to the maintenance claimed; and that the first appellant had passed the age of custody and was therefore not entitled to housing rent. However, the copy of the certificate issued by the Family Welfare Department of the Ministry of Social Affairs, submitted by the respondent before the trial court, establishes that this assistance was stopped on 5/1/2012, before the present action was instituted and before the commencement date of maintenance under the first-instance judgment, which made it payable from the date the action was filed, 23/10/2012. In addition, the record establishes that the appellants are unable to earn because they continue their university studies, and contains nothing indicating that they own a dwelling in which they reside or which is allocated for their residence. Accordingly, their maintenance, including housing rent as an element of children's maintenance, is owed to them by their father. Since the challenged judgment departed from this view, it is vitiated by defective inference and inadequate reasoning, requiring its partial cassation insofar as it rejected maintenance of both kinds for the second appellant and housing rent for the appellants.