Introduction
As Guyana continues on its extensive infrastructural works to cope with a fast-growing economy, one area of law – compulsory acquisition of land – has been sidestepped and ignored, almost exclusively to the detriment of property owners. While the holding of property is a constitutionally protected right under the Guyana Constitution, this country, in common with countries around the world, allows the Government, under strict conditions, to acquire private property. Under US jurisprudence, the concept is called “eminent domain.”
The insertion of the term “public purposes” in the name of our law may be designed to take the sting out of the appropriating of citizens’ property, while seeming to promote national development and patriotism. In practice, the law invites and paves the way for a very imbalanced relationship between the Government and the citizen with the Government using the coercive force of the law against the timidity of all but the well-heeled in society.
