LETTER: Amendment bill a trap
The seemingly innocuous proposed changes to section 25 of the constitution are dangerous
No doubt opposition parties are alive to the trap bring set by the seemingly innocuous proposed changes to section 25 of the constitution, where the preamble to the 18th Amendment Bill merrily talks about how the section must be amended “to make explicit that which is implicit”. Who could argue with such a reasonable amendment if indeed that is its only purpose?
The proposed section (3)A of the amendment provides for legislation to set out “the specific circumstances where a court can determine that the amount of compensation is nil”, and while the draft Expropriation Act 2019 appears to give comfort by including a list of five specific circumstances that could lead to nil compensation, it fails to do so because the list is preceded by the weasel words “including but not limited to”, which in effect nullifies the limiting nature of the list...
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