Cuba improves its legal system for expropriations

 

HAVANA, Cuba, Dec 13 (ACN) The National Assembly of People's Power (ANPP) approved the Act on Expropriation for reasons of public value or social interest, a provision that improves the current legislation in favor of collective interests.
 
 Meisi Bolaños Weiss, Minister of Finance and Prices, said that the regulation is governed by Article 58 of the Constitution, which stipulates that "the law lays down the foundations of the decisions regarding usefulness and necessity, its legal safeguards, and the procedure for and forms of compensation in cases of expropriation".
 
 Far from being prejudicial to people, the Act makes up for the lack of a single legal body to regulate expropriation—up to now controlled by scattered laws such as the General Housing and other Acts—and ratifies the principle that people can only be deprived of their property for the said reasons, as stipulated in Constitution, and will receive due compensation.
 
The use and conservation of natural resources; the construction of education, health, sports, cultural, recreational and other centers; and the development of infrastructure for the collective welfare in urban and rural settings, among others, are considered to justify public usefulness or social interest claims.
 
Bolaños Weiss stressed that the Act is the result of a hard joint effort by the State agencies involved and professors from the Law School of the University of Havana.