Chapter 11

EMINENT DOMAIN

“Private property shall not be taken for

public use without just compensation.”

- There is no need to expropriate

where the owner is willing to sell
under terms also acceptable to the
purchaser, in which case an ordinary
deed of sale may be agreed upon by
the parties. It is only where the
owner is unwilling to sell or cannot
accept the price or other conditions
offered by the vendee, that the
power of eminent domain will come
into play to assert the paramount
authority of the State over the
interests of the property owner.
PRIVATE RIGHTS MUST THEN YIELD
TO THE IRRESISTIBLE DEMANS OF
THE PUBLIC INTEREST on the time-
honored justification, as in the case
of the police power, that the welfare
of the people is the supreme law.

Note: “The constitutional provision is about

ensuring that the government does not
confiscate the property of some to give it to
others. In part too, it is about loss spreading.
If the government takes away a person’s
property to benefit the society, then society
should pay. The principal purpose of the
guarantee is ‘to bar the Government from
forcing some people alone to bear public
burdens which, in all fairness and justice,
should be borne by the public as a whole.”