Legal Restrictions on Freedom of Opinion: A Comparative Study of American and Kuwaiti Criminal Law

Individuals’ freedom to express their opinions is one of the most important individual rights enjoyed by members of any society, and it is considered a prerequisite for democracy in all civilized countries of the world. Every authority should believe that freedom of opinion and expression is the way to establish democracy and achieve society's development and stability. However, freedom of opinion and expression must have controls and restrictions, the lack of which can lead to catastrophic consequences for individuals and society through infringement of public freedoms. Therefore, the legislators in the United States and in Kuwait were keen to put a set of legal restrictions to regulate freedom of opinion so that, if any breach of the restrictions leads to a crime, the expressed opinions are denied protection under the first amendment of the US Constitution and the Kuwaiti Constitution.