‘Don’t cuff prisoner when in court’

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KUWAIT CITY, Nov 2: To promote values of freedom, the Kuwaiti judiciary has issued instructions to protect the dignity of people including prisoners and warned against placing hand cuffing and leg cuffing prisoners when they are inside the courtroom and placed in an iron cage, reports Al-Qabas daily. A number of criminal court circuit judges, when presiding over the trial sessions, stressed that this matter should not be repeated, and directed their messages to the prison men that cuffing prisoners and is not legally permissible.

A well-informed source told the daily not cuffing prisoners when they are inside the courtrooms has several indications and sends vital messages, the most prominent of which is that the accused must feel completely free before the judge, since “the accused is innocent until proven guilty,” in addition to the fact that the accused must say whatever he/ she wants and feel free, even if he/she is a prisoner, then the cuffs may frighten him/her and weaken his/her argument in expressing what he/she wants to say. The source added, “This does not mean that it is forbidden to place the cuffs on the prisoners outside the courts. This procedure is to be followed strictly when the prisoner is brought in front of the judge to defend himself/herself as it is a role of justice, where the accused should feel free and secure during trials.

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