The State’s Financial Liability — The Legal Basis

The Lebanese state owes Professor Thomas Hornig money. This page documents the legal basis for that liability — which institutions are implicated and under which laws. It does not publish a total. A full, itemized reconstruction exists and is reserved for the appropriate stage of enforcement, for the same reason a lawyer doesn’t read out damages before the verdict.

Which Institutions Are Implicated

1. Ministry of Culture / National Conservatory

Why:

• Employed Hornig as a de facto First Category professor since 1994.
• Benefited from full professional service while withholding statutory rank, salary scale, and allowances.
• Left Law 431/1995 parity obligations unexecuted for 30+ years.

Categories of liability: salary parity · workload/overtime disparity · housing, transport, and education allowances · round-trip airfare obligations.

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2. Pension Directorate / Ministry of Finance

Why:

• Decree 112/1959 requires First Category civil servants to be registered in the pension system.
• 30+ years of contributions — employer and employee share — were never credited.
• Full-time state service with zero pension registration is not an administrative gap; it is a legally impossible status.

Categories of liability: retroactive pension contributions · pension rights at the statutory final-salary rate · correction of service years and grade · accrued interest.

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3. National Social Security Fund (NSSF)

Why:

• Collected — or should have collected — salary-based contributions since 1994.
• Never provided effective health coverage despite the deductions on record.
• Withheld end-of-service indemnity for 30+ years.

Categories of liability: end-of-service indemnity · sickness and maternity arrears · family allowances · corrected wage history · restitution of deducted-but-unexecuted contributions.

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4. Treasury / Ministry of Finance

Why:

• Holds ultimate responsibility for unlawful retention of funds across ministries.
• Owes reimbursement for fees the state shifted onto Hornig personally — residency permits, work permits, taxes.
• Owes accumulated interest for 31 years of delay and non-execution.

Categories of liability: withheld-but-not-remitted deductions · residency and work-permit fees · misallocated taxes and fees · currency-collapse enrichment · statutory interest.

Why This Is Mandatory Under Lebanese Law

1. Law 431/1995 – Parity with Lebanese University Professors

• The preamble and Article 3 of Law 431/1995 tie Conservatory professors to Lebanese University first-category professors in rank, salary, allowances, and retirement.
• The law contains no nationality condition, no “budget permitting” clause, and no discretionary language.
• Once a professor is recognized as First Category, parity is not optional – it is a statutory command.

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2. Decree 112/1959 – Civil Servants Law

• Decree 112/1959 defines the rights of First Category civil servants: pension, end-of-service rights, family and education allowances, housing and transport indemnities, and health coverage.
• When Law 431/1995 places Conservatory professors on the Lebanese University First-Category track, Decree 112/1959 automatically attaches.
• Ministries cannot select some benefits and ignore others; partial execution is still illegality.

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3. Court of Cassation Jurisprudence

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4. Ministry of Labor Letter 1266/2015 – State Confession

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5. Core Principles of Lebanese Administrative Law

• Principle of legality: public authorities must apply laws and binding court interpretations as written; they cannot suspend or ignore them.
• Continuity of the administration: new ministers inherit existing obligations; they cannot evade liability by pointing to previous governments.
• Obligation to execute judgments and binding opinions: once First-Category status is confirmed, all ministries are bound to align their acts.
• Non-retrogression: a professor who has served as First Category for three decades cannot lawfully be deprived of the rights that status carries once recognition is formalized.

The Financial Doctrine

Five principles govern how liability like this is calculated under Lebanese law — described here as doctrine, not as a number.

• Treasury liability. The Public Treasury guarantees State financial obligations. When an institution cannot pay, the obligation transfers to the Treasury under Court of Audit supervision — a lack of budget line is not a defense.
• Compound interest for prolonged bad-faith withholding. Lebanese jurisprudence, including Cassation Decision 103/2023, recognizes that prolonged, documented non-execution is the kind of case where a higher interest rate applies.
• Real value. Compensation must reflect real value, not currency devalued by a collapse the employee did not cause. Courts do not treat Lebanon’s economic crisis as an excuse to shift that loss onto the worker.
• Unjust enrichment through currency arbitrage. An employer cannot retain decades of labor at a fraction of its agreed value and call it consent. This is the function of the unjust-enrichment principle in the Lebanese Code of Obligations and Contracts (Arts. 140, 301).
• Continuation of work is not consent. Continuing to work through years of underpayment is not agreement to the underpayment. Lebanese courts recognize that work continued under economic necessity is not freely accepted on its stated terms.