Enab Baladi – Jana al-Issa
According to Presidential Decree No. “16” for the year 2025, the Syrian transitional president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has canceled the provisional seizure decisions imposed on Syrians between 2012 and 2024, issued by the Ministry of Finance based on directives from security agencies and grounded in Legislative Decree No. “63” for the year 2012.
The decree tasked the Ministry of Finance, in coordination with the Ministries of Justice and Interior, with taking the necessary executive measures to expedite the lifting of the seizure.
The Minister of Finance, Mohammed Yosr Bernieh, stated in a press statement on May 12 that the seizure decisions were based on unjust directives from security agencies and were not based on judicial procedures, having been issued against citizens as a result of their support for the Syrian revolution.
According to the minister’s statement, these decisions deprived more than 91,000 Syrian citizens of their properties and assets.
One day after the issuance of the decree, the Minister of Justice, Mazhar al-Wais, the Minister of Interior, Anas Khattab, and the Minister of Finance, Mohammed Yosr Bernieh, met to discuss appropriate mechanisms and executive procedures for lifting the provisional seizure decisions and their amendments issued by the Ministry of Finance.
The meeting concluded with an agreement among the three ministries to form the necessary specialized committees from the relevant authorities to begin preparing lists of names of those whose assets (movable and immovable) are seized, sorting and addressing them.
With the fall of the ousted regime, the issue of confiscated properties has come back to the forefront, raising questions about how to recover them after years of illegal control by individuals and entities affiliated with the previous regime, and the necessary legal procedures to ensure the return of rights to their owners.
For political, not financial reasons
Since the beginning of 2011, the previous Syrian regime issued a series of laws and legislative decrees concerning property rights, which affected Syrians inside and outside the country, including the seizure of movable and immovable assets of political opponents or sympathizers with the Syrian revolution, including artists, intellectuals, and merchants, who were accused of supporting what is called “terrorism.”
The Anti-Terrorism Law No. “19” for the year 2012 stated in Article “12” that: “In all crimes stipulated in this law, the court shall issue a conviction judgment to confiscate movable and immovable assets and their yields, as well as items that were used or intended for use in committing the crime, and shall rule to dissolve the terrorist organization if it exists.”
Provisional seizure decisions are made for several reasons, some of which are financial and others politically fabricated by the regime to punish its opponents.
To distinguish between decisions issued for political or financial reasons, Syrian lawyer Ghazwan Kurunful told Enab Baladi that the decision is always justified and based on a legal basis along with the issuing authority. Provisional seizure decisions related to purely financial disputes typically originate from the judiciary, or in exceptions, from the Ministry of Finance, but based on a purely financial dispute.
As for the other decisions, their sources may be either judicial, such as the Terrorism Court, or security-based.
Lawyer Aref al-Shaal explained to Enab Baladi that Legislative Decree No. “63” for the year 2012 restricted provisional seizure decisions to security reasons, where the Ministry of Finance issues its decision to impose preventive seizure based on a letter from the investigating judge or the public prosecution, or from security institutions or courts.
If financial reasons are involved, the seizure decision is issued based on the Public Funds Collection Law, according to al-Shaal.
It takes time
Regarding the mechanism for lifting the seizure and the time these procedures will take, lawyer Ghazwan Kurunful clarified that when a decision is issued to cancel the seizure decision, a letter is sent to the real estate registry or other authorities (financial, temporary registry, housing associations, or military housing) to cancel the seizure notice on the person’s assets. Every affected individual can obtain a copy of the decision and the letter to follow up with those authorities personally to complete the cancellation procedures.
If the seizure is on movable assets, the individual can refer to execution directorates to organize a record of the cancellation of the seizure on those assets, as Kurunful explained.
For his part, lawyer Aref al-Shaal pointed out that lifting the seizure will require a lot of work and time due to decisions made by the previous regime over more than ten consecutive years. Given the large number of seizures, the lawyer believes that the likelihood of errors is very high, so it is best for those whose assets are seized to handle the matter personally, in his opinion.
Confiscation or recovery?
Lawyer Ghazwan Kurunful considered that the cancellation of the effects of the seizure decisions returns matters to how they were before the seizure, thus liberating the assets of the seized individuals, allowing them to freely dispose of them. Meanwhile, lawyer Aref al-Shaal noted that the matter of returning the seized or frozen funds for security reasons, based on judicial decisions, without ownership claims, requires a law that restores these funds to their owners.
Many human rights organizations have affirmed that the policy of provisional seizure of movable and immovable assets by the Syrian regime was one of the most effective tools used to achieve additional financial resources for its treasury by seizing the assets under seizure and subsequently disposing of them, as well as a punishment against most of those who opposed it and their families, by applying further social, legal, and economic restrictions against them.
All provisional seizure decisions analyzed are based on the Law of Judicial Authority Powers in Syria (Legislative Decree 63 for 2012), which empowers the Ministry of Finance to freeze individuals’ assets preventively without a court order, based on requests from the judicial authority until investigations on crimes against internal or external state security, and the crimes stipulated in the arbitrary Anti-Terrorism Law in Syria for 2012 are completed.
Documents concerning provisional seizure decisions issued by the Syrian regime, which the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) retains copies of, show that those arbitrarily detained, victims of enforced disappearance in detention centers run by regime forces, and those forcibly displaced inside and outside Syria, are among the widest and most prominent affected by provisional seizure decisions, most of which subsequently turn into executive seizure and confiscation decisions.
Procedures preceding the lifting of provisional seizure in Syria Enab Baladi.
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