Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 1

Summary: - The President of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters. His competence to issue decisions registering archaeological sites and historic buildings. - Compensation claimed by interested parties where registered properties are not expropriated. It is borne by the aforementioned National Council as the body responsible for preserving antiquities. The challenged judgment’s departure from this and its imposition of provisional compensation on all appellants, including other administrative bodies. A violation of the law requiring partial quashing in respect of its award of provisional compensation. Rule: Article (11) of Amiri Decree No. (11) of 1960 promulgating the Antiquities Law, as amended by Law No. (9) of 1994, provides: "If the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters does not expropriate the registered archaeological site or historic building within one year of its registration, its owner may claim compensation from that Council for the registration." The effect of this provision is that the legislature, after entrusting the President of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters with competence to issue decisions registering archaeological sites and historic buildings, charged the Council with the amount of compensation claimed by interested parties where registered properties are not expropriated. It expressly provided that a claim for compensation for registration in this situation is to be directed against the Council alone, as the body responsible for preserving antiquities. That being so, and whereas the challenged judgment, after establishing that the property in dispute had not been expropriated within one year of its registration and that the two respondents were entitled to claim compensation for that registration pursuant to the aforementioned Article (11) of the Antiquities Law, ordered all the appellants to pay the provisional compensation claimed, although the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters alone is liable for that compensation as explained above, it violated the law. This requires its partial quashing in respect of its award of compensation on this ground, without any need to examine the remaining grounds of the two appeals.