Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 50

Summary: - Maintenance is obligatory for a woman observing a waiting period following divorce, annulment, or consummation of an invalid marriage or intercourse under a mistaken belief of lawfulness. Its inclusion in spousal maintenance. The reason therefor. It is considered a debt owed by the man from the date it becomes due and is extinguished only by payment or release. - Rules exist or cease to exist according to the existence or absence of their underlying cause. - Where the text is general and unrestricted, there is no room to particularise or restrict it by reference to its underlying wisdom. The reason: doing so introduces, by interpretation, a different rule not contained in the text. - Waiting-period maintenance is obligatory for a woman irrevocably divorced. The reason: the wording of the text is general, without any restriction or condition, and does not make waiting-period maintenance contingent on whether or not the divorce was attributable to her. Adopting a different view restricts the unrestricted text and particularises its generality without a particularising basis, which sound rules of interpretation reject. Rule: It is established—in the jurisprudence of this Court—that the legislature, pursuant to Articles 16 and 163 of Law No. 51 of 1984 concerning Personal Status, made maintenance obligatory for a woman observing a waiting period following divorce, annulment, or consummation of an invalid marriage or intercourse under a mistaken belief of lawfulness. It thus falls within her spousal maintenance as a debt owed by the man from the date it becomes due, and is extinguished only by payment or release. It is established that rules exist or cease to exist according to the existence or absence of their underlying cause, and that, where the text is general and unrestricted, there is no room to particularise or restrict it by reference to its underlying wisdom, since doing so introduces, by interpretation, a different rule not contained in the text. It is established that waiting-period maintenance is obligatory for a woman irrevocably divorced because the wording of the text is general, without any restriction or condition. It does not make her right to that maintenance contingent on whether or not the divorce was attributable to her, since that would restrict the unrestricted text and particularise its generality without a particularising basis, which sound rules of interpretation reject. That being so, the challenged judgment concluded by reversing the appealed judgment insofar as it ruled that the appellant was entitled to waiting-period maintenance, on the basis that the judgment granting divorce for harm, No. 800/2011 Personal Status, issued on 14/3/2012, had forfeited her financial rights because the divorce was attributable to her, and the judgment consequently forfeited her right to waiting-period maintenance. However, her right to that maintenance is an extension of her right to spousal maintenance, which is forfeited only upon proof of her refusal to comply with an obedience judgment and proof of her marital disobedience. No regard is to be had to the ruling in the judgment granting divorce for harm establishing her wrongdoing and depriving her of her financial rights, since that deprivation does not extend to waiting-period maintenance, pursuant to the provisions of the law and the foregoing legal rules. She is therefore entitled to waiting-period maintenance from him. Since the challenged judgment departed from this view, it erred in applying and interpreting the law, which vitiates it and requires its cassation.