The Director of the Legal Affairs Department, Mubarak Al-Baddah, the official spokesman for the Public Authority for Persons with Disabilities, revealed so far this year 6 cases have referred to the Public Prosecution — 3 of suspected of facilitating the theft of public money and 3 of forgery of papers and documents.
Al-Baddah told a local Arabic daily that the Investigations and Cases Department of the Legal Department, after completion of investigations referred them to the Public Prosecution. These crimes are punishable by law and the money must be returned to the treasury because it has been spent unlawfully.
Al-Baddah stated, “The concerned department was able to identify the cases of disbursing money unlawfully following which the issue was addressed to the Fatwa and Legislation Department to recover this money. The total number of lawsuits has reached approximately 260 worth 847 thousand. Dinars.” He explained the authority has so far succeeded in recovering money from 94 cases, in addition to the issuance of 11 verdicts to recover money spent ‘unlawfully’.
He added that the authority has taken legal measures by sending warnings to those concerned to return the money or addressed the fatwa department to file lawsuits, against 143 cases, to demand the return of about 747,000 unjustly spent.
Al-Baddah stated that following up on cases filed by or against the authority, in coordination with the Fatwa and Legislation Department, and representing the authority before the judiciary, is one of the most important competencies entrusted with the work of the department.
He pointed out 7,244 cases lawsuits, have been filed by or against the authority from the beginning of this year until the end of last August, including 3,329 cases filed against the authority, which are still being looked into by the courts and have not yet been decided.
He added, “The total number of final judgments issued in the cases filed against the authority amounted to 3655 of which 2564 were in favor of the authority, and 1091 against it, meaning that the case profit rate amounted to 71 percent, which is not a small percentage that refutes any allegations about the authority’s standing against the interest of the disabled, and confirms the correctness of its legal procedures in this regard.
Regarding the cases brought against the authority, Al-Baddah said that the most prominent of them is to cancel an administrative decision issued by the authority to reject the decision of the medical committees, whether to reduce the degree of disability, or to consider the person not falling under its concept especially since this opinion is purely medical and technical.
He stated that there is a judicial ruling issued by the Court of Cassation, which is used during all similar cases against the authority, confirming that the competent medical technical committee in the concerned authority, and no one else, has the competence to determine the type and degree of disability, based on Law No. 8 of 2010, issued on the rights of persons with disabilities.
Al-Badah revealed that the Investigations and Cases Department in the Legal Department had created a system to follow up on cases and set up a mechanism for organizing and registering them with serial numbers and distributing them to jurists so that every legal researcher would be responsible for the lawsuit filed by or against the authority, indicating that the department has also archived case papers published by newspapers, lawsuits and response memos from the fatwa department on the follow-up system to avoid paperwork and speed up the completion of legal work.
