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Kuwait
Police and the Criminal Justice System
The Ministry of Interior has overall responsibility for public
security and law and order. Under the ministry, the national police
has primary responsibility for maintaining public order and preventing
and investigating crimes. The National Guard--a semiautonomous
body--has guard duties on the border and at oil fields, utilities,
and other strategic locations. The guard acts as a reserve for
the regular forces and reinforces the metropolitan police as needed.
Police selected for officer rank attend a three-year program
at the Police Academy. National Guard officer candidates attend
the Kuwaiti Military College, after which they receive specialized
guard training. Women work in certain police departments, such
as criminal investigation, inquiries, and airport security.
The principal police divisions are criminal investigation, traffic,
emergency police, nationality and passports, immigration, prisons,
civil defense, and trials and courtsmartial . The criminal investigation
division is responsible for ordinary criminal cases; Kuwait State
Security investigates security-related offenses. Both are involved
in investigations of terrorism and those suspected of collaboration
with Iraq.
The Kuwaiti judicial system generally provides fair public trials
and an adequate appeals mechanism, according to the United States
Department of State's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices
for 1991. Under Kuwaiti law, no detainee can be held for
more than four days without charge; after being charged by a prosecutor,
detention for up to an additional twenty-one days is possible.
Persons held under the State Security Law can be detained. Bail
is commonly set in all cases. The lowest level courts, aside from
traffic courts, are the misdemeanor courts that judge offenses
subject to imprisonment not exceeding three years. Courts of first
instance hear felony cases in which the punishment can exceed
three years. All defendants in felony cases are required to be
represented by attorneys, appointed by the court if necessary.
Legal counsel is optional in misdemeanor cases, and the court
is not obliged to provide an attorney.
Kuwaiti authorities contend that the rate of ordinary crime is
low, and data available through 1986 tended to bear this out.
Of more than 5,000 felonies committed in that year, only 5 percent
were in the category of theft. The number of misdemeanors was
roughly equal to the number of felonies, but only 10 percent were
thefts. Offenses involving forgery, fraud, bribery, assaults and
threats, and narcotics and alcohol violations were all more common
than thefts.
Two separate State Security Court panels, each composed of three
justices, hear crimes against state security or other cases referred
to it by the Council of Ministers. Trials in the State Security
Court initially are held in closed session but subsequently are
opened to the press and others. They do not, in the judgment of
the Department of State, meet international standards for fair
trials. Military courts, which ordinarily have jurisdiction only
over members of the armed services or security forces, can try
offenses charged against civilians under conditions of martial
law. Martial law was imposed for the first time after the liberation
of the country from Iraqi occupation. About 300 persons suspected
of collaboration with Iraq were tried by military courts in May
and June 1991, and 115 were convicted. Twenty-nine received sentences
of death, later commuted to life imprisonment after international
criticism of the trials. Human rights groups drew attention to
the failure to provide adequate legal safeguards to defendants
and an unwillingness to accept the defense that collaboration
with Iraqi forces had been coerced. Many of the accused alleged
that their confessions had been extracted under torture.
Data as of January 1993
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