Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 468

Summary: - Newborns and deceased persons not reported within one year from the date of birth or death. Their registration is impermissible until a registration decision has been issued by the Births and Deaths Committee. This must be based on an application by the interested party setting out the particulars and evidence establishing the validity of the application. The Committee is required to examine the application and, if satisfied of its validity, publish it in two consecutive issues of the Official Gazette. The passage of fifteen days from the date of the last publication without an objection being submitted, or an objection being submitted and the Committee deciding that it is unfounded. The Committee must issue a decision registering the newborn or deceased person in the registers, and the number and date of the Committee's decision must be annotated opposite the entry. The Committee's failure to proceed with the procedures. A negative decision declining to issue the certificate, which may be challenged. Recourse to the courts without submitting an application to the Committee. Inadmissible, because there is no negative decision declining to issue the certificate. The basis thereof: failure to follow the legally prescribed procedures. Articles 15 and 21 of Law 36 of 1969 concerning the Registration of Births and Deaths. Rule: It is established—in the jurisprudence of this Court—that Article 21 of Law No. 36/1969 concerning the Registration of Births and Deaths provides that "Newborns and deceased persons not reported after one year from the date of birth or death shall not be registered until a registration decision has been issued by the Births and Deaths Committee provided for in Article 15 of this Law, upon an application by the interested party setting out the particulars and evidence establishing the validity of the application, and after payment of the fee. The Committee shall examine this application and, if satisfied of its validity, notice thereof shall be published in two consecutive issues of the Official Gazette. If no objection is submitted within the fifteen days following the date of the last publication, or an objection is submitted and the Committee decides that it is unfounded, the Committee shall issue a decision registering the newborn or deceased person in the registers. The employee entrusted with registration must annotate the number and date of the Committee's decision in the remarks column ... and the person making the report shall be given a copy of the entry free of charge. If the Committee fails to proceed with the procedures required by Article 21 of the aforementioned Law, its conduct constitutes a negative decision contrary to law and obstructs the interested parties' obtaining a certificate establishing the fact of birth, provided that their application satisfies the requirements set out in that Article without objection thereto after notice thereof has been published in the Official Gazette. That being so, and since the challenged judgment based its ruling that the action was inadmissible on its conclusion that his father had submitted an application for issuance of the certificate to the respondent in his official capacity more than one year after the date on which his paternity was established, and that the papers contained nothing indicating that he or his father had submitted an application to register his birth to the Births and Deaths Committee, which is legally entrusted—not the respondent in his official capacity—under the express terms of the aforementioned Article, with considering that matter, there is consequently no negative decision declining to issue him a birth certificate, owing to his failure to follow the legally prescribed procedures. This is a reasonable inference by the judgment, supported by the record, sufficient to sustain its ruling and leading to the result it reached, and it has correctly applied the law. Accordingly, the appellant's criticism, for which he has supplied no evidence, directed at faulting that inference, amounts to a factual argument whose assessment lies exclusively with the court of fact and which may not be raised before the Court of Cassation.