Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 56

Summary: - Newborns and deceased persons not reported within one year from the date of birth or death. They may not be registered until a registration decision has been issued by the Births and Deaths Committee. This must take place upon an application by the interested party setting out the particulars and evidence establishing the validity of the application. The Committee is obliged 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. It must issue a decision to register the newborn or deceased person in the registers, and the number and date of the Committee’s decision must be annotated against the entry. The Committee’s failure to proceed with the procedures. A negative decision refusing to issue the certificate, which may be challenged. Resorting to the courts without submitting an application to the Committee. Inadmissible, owing to the absence of a negative decision refusing to issue the certificate. Basis thereof: failure to follow the procedures prescribed by law. Articles 15 and 21 of Law 36 of 1969 concerning Registration of Births and Deaths. Rule: It is established in this Court’s jurisprudence that Article 21 of Law No. 36/1969 concerning 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 to register the newborn or deceased person in the registers. The employee entrusted with registration must annotate the remarks column with the number and date of the Committee’s decision ... and the reporting person 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, so long as their application satisfies the requirements set out in that Article without objection thereto after publication in the Official Gazette. Accordingly, whereas the challenged judgment based its ruling that the action was inadmissible on its conclusion that his father submitted an application for issuance of the certificate to the respondent, in his 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 capacity—under the express terms of the aforementioned Article, with considering that matter. Consequently, there is no negative decision refusing to issue him a birth certificate, because he did not follow the procedures prescribed by law. This is a reasonable inference by the judgment, with an established basis in the papers, sufficient to support its ruling and leading to the conclusion it reached, and it adhered to the correct law. The appellant’s challenge, for which he submitted no evidence, seeking to impugn that inference, therefore amounts to a factual argument whose assessment is exclusively for the trial court and which may not be raised before the Court of Cassation.