French colonial settlers and Harkis lodge complaints against the Algerian authorities over real –estate properties

Following the instructions issued by the Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia to key ministerial departments to follow the legal cases introduced by the former colonial settlers to retrieve their properties in Algeria, the interior minister has, in his turn, urged the governors across the country to act accordingly in their respective provinces noting that they were the legally fit to represent the Algerian government and;, thus guarantee its wrights.

•  The Director General of the national real-estate properties has, in this respect, forwarded a thorough document including 30 cases introduced before justice by the French settlers; most of them has become a matter of controversy and forced several Algerian families to leave their real-estates after years of occupation, without any legal settlement to their cases.
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• Several key documents, the minister has indicated, reveal the utmost importance given by the officials at the government’s real-estates departments to scrupulously supervise these legal issues at the level of the justice courts.
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• The judicial experts in charge of following up the disputed legal cases have insisted on forwarding a copy of the decision issued by the UN Human Rights Committee based in Geneva, on November 1^st 2006.
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• The decision has denied the right to one of the French settlers, who sued the Algerian government to retrieve his pre-independence properties, as part of an overall complaint lodged by 800 French settlers and Harkis, The UN committee has ruled out the request considering prior to the subscription of Algeria to this international agreement.