Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 171

Summary: - The President of the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters. His competence to issue a decision registering archaeological sites and historical buildings. - Compensation claimed by the persons concerned where the registered properties are not expropriated. It is borne by the aforementioned National Council as the body responsible for preserving antiquities. The challenged judgment departing from this and ordering all the appellants, including other administrative bodies, to pay provisional compensation. A violation of the law requiring its partial cassation in respect of the provisional compensation awarded. Rule: Article (11) of Amiri Decree No. (11) of 1960 concerning 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 historical building within a year of its registration, its owner may claim compensation for registration from this Council." The import 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 historical buildings, placed upon the Council the amount of compensation claimed by the persons concerned where the registered properties are not expropriated. It expressly provided that a claim for compensation for registration in this case is to be directed against the Council alone as the body responsible for preserving antiquities. That being so, and the challenged judgment, after establishing that the property in dispute had not been expropriated within a year of its registration and that the 2 respondents were entitled to claim compensation for this registration pursuant to Article (11) of the aforementioned Antiquities Law, having ordered all the appellants to pay the provisional compensation claimed, whereas the body responsible for this compensation is the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters alone, as explained above, it violated the law, requiring its partial cassation in respect of the compensation awarded on this ground, without any need to examine the remaining grounds of the 2 appeals.