Athanasios Gromitsaris, Expropriations, Takings - ius-publicum

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The problem of regulating property to nothing, is also to be seen within the context
of the German system of remedies against public authorities: Firstly, it is settled case law
since 1981 (“Nassauskiesungsbeschluss”, Watershed Gravel Mining Decision of the Fed-
eral Constitutional Court) that any legislative determination of the content and limits of
property pursuant to Article 14.1 sentence 2 of the Basic Law must be compatible with the
principles of equality and proportionality. 58 Secondly, compensation for expropriation has
no longer the function it used to have under the Article 153 of the Constitution of the Wei-
mar Republic (Weimarer Reichsverfassung) as well as within the context of the case law
developed first by the High Court of the Weimar Republic (Reichsgericht ) and then by the
Federal Supreme Court after the Second World War: Over that period of time claims of
compensation for expropriation were practically the only legal remedy against legislative
encroachments upon the right to property. Things are different now. Since legal protection
for the affected owner is no longer restricted to monetary compensation, and since a legisla-
tive content determination that violates the proportionality or equality principle can be an-
nulled by the Federal Constitutional Court, an extensive concept of expropriation is no
longer necessary in order to guarantee the legal protection of the affected owner.
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Copyleft – Ius Publicum
2.1.5.5 The right to be expropriated
The “right to be expropriated” or “claim to transference” is a legal instrument
mainly in cases of partial expropriation, in the field of planning law and noise protection,
and in historic preservation cases. 59 It constitutes a transfer of title claim of a landowner
58 See on this point BVerfGE 58, 137 (147 et sequ.).
59 See the case law of the Federal Constitutional Court with an analysis of the relevant case of the Federal Admin-
istrative Court (Bundesverwaltungsgericht, BVerWG): BVerfG, 1 BvR 3474/08 vom 15.10.2009, Absatz-Nr. (1 -
72), paras 50-52; http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rk20091015_1bvr347408.html; BVerfG, 1 BvR 1606/08
vom 29.7.2009, Absatz-Nr. (1 - 38), http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rk20090729_1bvr160608.html;
BVerfG, 1 BvL 7/91 vom 2.3.1999, Absatz-Nr. (1 - 109),
http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/ls19990302_1bvl000791.html; BVerfG, 1 BvR 2736/08 vom 23.2.2010,
Absatz-Nr. (1 - 65), http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rk20100223_1bvr273608.html; BVerfG, 1 BvR
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