THE TRANSPORT Ministry has assigned a team of people with the task of developing a draft law on expropriation of property to speed up the process of the state acquiring private land for highway construction.
“I believe they will find a solution that will not be unconstitutional and at the same time will allow us to accelerate the expropriation of land,” Transport Minister Ján Počiatek stated, as quoted by the SITA newswire. The minister said that in some cases expropriation procedures are necessary to construct the country’s primary infrastructure.
The new cabinet pledged to develop this legislation in its programme statement adopted by parliament after parts of a law passed by parliament in 2007 during Robert Fico’s first term as prime minister were found to be unconstitutional by Slovakia’s Constitutional Court in January 2011. The previous parliament passed an amendment to the 2007 law that took effect on March 1 this year that prohibits the start of highway construction on land until the state has full title to it.
