Uncertainty over expropriation law in El Salvador

After Nayib Bukele made his big announcement of “Bitcoin City”, José Miguel Cruz, the director of research at the Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center at Florida International University made the following statement:

It’s crazy to think that everything will be done in a few years. In fact, I don’t remember any project in a Salvadoran city that has been built from scratch in the last century, and this is going to cause problems for the people who live in those areas, because we are a densely populated country. So they will have to expropriate” land, Cruz said to NBC news.

Three days after the event on Mizata beach, the Salvadoran Legislative Assembly, dominated by the ruling party, approved a law that allows the expropriation of real estate for municipal works.

The law was approved with 63 votes and entered into force on December 1, after Nayib Bukele sanctioned it and ordered it to be published in the Official Gazette on November 23, after having been approved that same day, after just two sessions of 20 minutes of discussion in the committee, which it’s not suprising in El Salvador we’re living in nowadays.

 

Experts have reacted to this law:

(In the original draft) the second paragraph of article 1, read: “The owners or possessors of real estate, which are considered of public interest, may be deprived of their property rights or legitimate patrimonial interests, after a declaration of public utility or interest social and with a fair compensation”. In the approved regulations, the parts of “legally proven” and “prior” to just compensation were excluded.

Enrique Anaya, an expert in constitutional law, pointed out that this type of process should be resolved by administrative contentious judges, and not by civil judges.

Later, José Marinero, an expert lawyer in administrative law, considered that this is a regulation designed to have no limits or controls.

“It is an extraordinary tool in the hands of the public administration with few controls. It also has a provision that allows the administration to begin the works without the trial having been completed which could lead to abuse and serious arbitrariness”.

 

This became an immediate concern of our friends in Cinquera, and specifically our allies of ARDM when Sandra Martinez, a Nuevas Ideas representative, made the following statements:

“We have Cinquera, the owners do not even live in this country. The rulers we have had in this country have taken over every part of this land. The land belongs to no one, gentlemen, the land belongs to all of us who live and are born in this country. If you see the laws in the United States, you can have a very nice house but the land always belongs to the State.

Have you been in Cinquera? There are three unique trees there. Go see them. Let the park rangers explain all the flora and fauna in that place that is extinct. But it has an owner … See the abandoned buildings there. They have owners from previous administrations (…) The law, it’s a pity it took a long time! We need this law, gentlemen!”

Sandra Martínez, deputy for New Ideas.

 

Those remarks are as telling as those from Christian Guevara when explaining the reasoning behind the proposed “Foreign agents law” and are just another sample of the legal uncertainty experienced nowadays.

 

Meanwhile, our friends from ARDM have only been able to update the mapping of land owners, document the different studies conducted in the area and meet with the communities in the area to report what’s happening in the municipality and the threat they may be facing.

 

 

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