Nineveh court ruling draws opposing reactions over disputed land
Shafaq News- Nineveh
Iraq’s Federal Supreme Court on Monday issued its ruling on a dispute over land in the Qazza Fakhra and Jaliyukhan areas of Nineveh province, drawing sharply different reactions.
Nineveh Provincial Council member Abdullah al-Nujaifi told Shafaq News that, in his view, the court’s decision to dismiss the case confirmed the legality of the council’s earlier decisions. He described the ruling as justice for the wronged, referring to residents who had been barred from building on their land for 20 years.
Al-Nujaifi maintained that the ruling ended a long period of tensions and disputes and demonstrated what he described as the state’s “strength and compassion.” He stressed that the decision was not limited to the two areas but extended to anyone who legally owns property and had been prevented from using it in recent years.
Members of the Shabak community, an Iraqi ethnic and religious minority concentrated in the Nineveh Plains, rejected the ruling.
Journalist and activist Younis al-Agha told Shafaq News that celebrating the decision amounted to promoting “illusory victories,” arguing that the case had effectively returned to “square one” without a substantive resolution.
Al-Agha explained that the ruling did not settle the underlying dispute or establish that the provincial council’s decisions were legally valid. Instead, he noted that the court’s ruling was limited to “dismissal for lack of jurisdiction,” a procedural decision that ends the constitutional challenge while leaving the underlying dispute unresolved and property ownership in the affected areas without additional legal guarantees.
He also warned against what he described as imposing a new reality on land belonging to different communities.
The dispute dates back to an earlier vote by the Nineveh Provincial Council to lift restrictions on construction and grant building permits for residential plots in the villages of Qazza Fakhra and Jaliyukhan in the Nineveh Plains. The land had been subject to restrictions on construction and use for two decades.
The vote drew objections from representatives of the Shabak community. Shabak members of Iraq’s parliament subsequently filed a formal challenge with the Federal Supreme Court, arguing that the council’s decision could pave the way for demographic change and affect land ownership in the area and the rights of its original residents.
