Article 23 of the Saudi Emergency Law

This article regulates how compensation is assessed under Article 22, namely fair compensation for anyone assigned a task or required to provide money, whose property was taken into possession, expropriated, used or destroyed under the emergency orders, and for anyone harmed by an unlawful measure taken on the pretext of applying them.

Paragraph (1): assessment committees

• They may be formed by an emergency order or a special royal order, as the case may be.
• They have no fewer than 3 members, including a Sharia adviser or a legal adviser.
• The formation order specifies their organizational reporting line, their working rules and procedures, and the assessment controls. The article does not state these details but refers them to the formation order.

Paragraph (2): periods and objection

• The committee issues its decision within 30 working days of the date the compensation assessment request is submitted. What counts is working days, not calendar days.
• Its decision may be objected to before the competent administrative court.
• The objection period is 60 days from the date the person concerned is notified of the decision, not from the date it was issued.

The practical path is therefore this: the rights holder submits a request for compensation assessment, the committee issues its decision within the specified period, and anyone who does not accept the decision may object to it before the administrative court within 60 days of being notified.

This path differs from the annulment actions in Article 24, which the administrative court also hears and which concern annulling decisions relating to the application of emergency orders. Anyone who needs to submit a compensation request or object to a committee's decision can consult a lawyer who specializes in administrative cases.