Duta Enclave: Legal expert raises concern about constitutional safeguards
Lawyer and expert in local government and planning laws Derek Fernandez said if a compulsory acquisition was flawed, then it should follow that legal ownership could not pass and losses should "lie where they fall".
He said allowing the ownership would go against the Constitution, which guaranteed that no one should lose their property without fair compensation and only if the law was properly followed.
"If land acquisition laws as in this case provide a mandatory procedure, then it must be followed; if not huge abuses can take place.
"Even now there are complaints where land acquisition laws are being wrongly used to force acquisition of private properties."
He said the case should not be used as a precedent and should be restricted to its special facts.
"These considerations would be the serious public inconvenience and harm that will follow if public and government facilities are now privately owned due to the transfer of ownership.
"However, these cases must be very, very rare. The facts of this case and its great delay may suggest it is such a case, but I am sure the Federal Court will determine whether this is to be the law."
He said there was no need to amend the Land Acquisition Act to prevent this situation.
What needs to be changed, he said, was the way the act was implemented by administrators, who must be made to understand what constitutional rights are.
Property lawyer Syazwan Jafri said the Duta Enclave case highlighted a serious gap between legal rights and enforceable remedies.
"This means that even when the government is found to be in the wrong, landowners are limited to monetary compensation."
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