Nieruchomości@ (Dec 2020)
Constitutional nature and content of the right to restitution of an expropriated property
Abstract
The Act of 4 April 2019 on amending the Act on Real Property Management added a provision temporarily limiting the possibility of demanding restitution of the expropriated property. On the basis of the new provision, the right of the previous owner or its legal successors to restitute the expropriated property has ceased to be of perpetual nature. This right may not be exercised, as it previously was the case, at any time, as it expires 20 years from the date on which the decision to expropriate became final. This solution should be assessed negatively, as it deepens the non-constitutional nature of the statutory mechanism of restitution of expropriated real property, which makes the demand for restitution dependent on whether the public objective has been assumed (i.e. started to be implemented). If this is the case, then, in the light of the Real Property Management Act of 1997, the restitution of real property can never be claimed, and therefore even if such an objective in the future ceases to be implemented (e.g. as a result of the end of the operation of the real property as part of a public investment). However, in the light of the constitutional arrangements relating to the guarantee of ownership, the right to restitution of the expropriated property should always be vested in the expropriated owner or his/her legal successors whenever the public objective justifying the expropriation has not arisen as well as when it ceased to be implemented. In any event, the condition for claiming restitution shall be a claim made by the person concerned and a return of an appropriate, indexed sum paid as compensation for expropriation. The constitutional principle of the protection of individual status of property of the owner results in the “conditionality” of the transfer of ownership by way of expropriation to the State or another entity. Any existence and implementation of an appropriate objective justifying the expropriation for a public purpose, grants of the ownership and its permanence on the part of these entities. As a consequence, also the possible expiry date of the claim for the restitution of the property, expropriated after the expiry of the public purpose, should run from the time of such expiry and not from the moment when the decision about expropriation became final.
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