Attorney General
Dherar Al-Asousi

KUWAIT: Attorney General Dherar Al-Asousi said the public prosecution agrees with the proposal of MP Marzouq Al-Khalifa to raise the age of a juvenile to 18 as it was before. Asousi said reducing the age to 16 years violates Kuwait’s child law that was passed by the National Assembly in 2015, and also violates international treaties signed by Kuwait that set a minor’s age as 18. He said the prosecution prepared a memo and sent it to the justice ministry to refer it to the Assembly.

The previous Assembly, which reduced the juvenile’s age, did not seek the public prosecution’s opinion for this law. The new juvenile law became effective on January 1, 2017, and a suspect who is over 16 will be treated as an adult for precautionary detention for 21 days for felonies and 10 days for misdemeanors. He will be kept in adult wards in prison and could be sentenced to death. — Al-Jarida