Expropriation Revisited

The unlikely victory of private owners over the big infrastructure projects in Bulgaria's Constitutional Court

For the sake of better infrastructure: the preferential expropriation regime of 2010

Big infrastructure projects, such as highways and transmission gas pipelines, by definition affect the rights of many private owners whose land happens to be located on the project track. Owner-investor negotiations for acquisition of the necessary land are not economically feasible on such scale and the expropriation is often the alternative, which make these projects possible. On the other hand, having promulgated the right of ownership as an absolute constitutional right, the Bulgarian Constitution allows expropriation only as an exception. It can be applied if there is an overriding public interest that commands such material infringement of the private ownership right, and becomes effective after adequate compensation has been paid.