Mr. Hamad Faisal Abdullah Al-Kandari
Master’s in public law – KILAW

Abstract:

The research deals with the crime of causing transmission of communicable diseases to others; this crime was introduced by the Kuwaiti legislator in the third item of Article (17) of Law No. 8 of 1969, which was amended by Law No. 4 of 2020 with health precautions for the prevention of communicable diseases. In this article, the Kuwaiti legislator criminalizes this act as a result of a Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak in the country. The legislator took a prompt action to include this disease in the list of communicable diseases, then added a provision that punishes everyone who intentionally transmits communicable diseases to others, in an attempt by the health authorities to tighten the control over this disease in the country, and because of the seriousness of the offender’s behavior, which may lead to another outbreak.
The importance of this topic stems from the grave danger posed by Coronavirus (Covid-19), which was classified by the World Health Organization in March 2020 as a global pandemic, affected millions around the world and claimed hundreds of thousands of lives. Therefore, many countries around the world, including Kuwait, were keen to take precautionary measures in order to confront this virus and limit its spread. Some of these measures included criminalizing transmitting infection and increasing the severity of the punishment. This study is concerned with the seriousness of this crime and the severity of its penalty, which is a term of not more than 10 years imprisonment. Thus, when it comes to this crime, the public prosecution is competent to investigate, take action and prosecute.
The research aims to provide an analytical study that can be added to the academic studies available on the topic, in order to help those working in the legal field, specifically members of the Public Prosecution and the judiciary, to delve deeper into understanding the crime of causing transmission of communicable diseases to others. In light of the prevalence of Coronavirus in Kuwait, it is expected that various events will be presented to the courts related to this crime. The research methodology was based on an analytical study of the Kuwaiti law which criminalizes the crime of transmitting communicable diseases to others.
The research explains the constituent elements of this crime, in terms of its supposed condition and its material and moral elements, and the terms included in the criminal text and their impact on the above-mentioned elements. The search, also, aims to highlight some legislative loopholes, and provide suggestions to the Kuwaiti legislator, among which is that the legislator should punish the in the basis of an involuntary crime, committed due to carelessness, recklessness or negligence, and that the legislator should increase the penalty for whoever transmits the disease for more than one person due to the seriousness of this behavior, which could lead to an outbreak.

Keywords: causation crime, transmission, infection, coronavirus, Covid-19.

Read Full PDF Text (Arabic)